There’s a new world’s No. 4 richest: India’s Gautam Adani, who moved up one spot in Forbes’ Real-Time billionaire rankings on July 15, 2022, after Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates announced a huge new gift, according to a post by Forbes.
The billionaire math is simple when it comes to big charitable donations: Give money away and your net worth shrinks. That’s what happened to Bill Gates, who said Wednesday that he’s donating $20 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation this month as part of the foundation’s effort to increase its annual giving 50% by 2026.
The shift in funds led to Adani moving into the No. 4 spot—Bill Gates’ prior rank. The Indian tycoon’s wealth has more than doubled since early 2021 to a current $112.9 billion. Adani, an infrastructure tycoon, owns stakes in six publicly traded companies that bear his name and operate in power, green energy, gas, ports and more.
Adani overtook fellow Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani to become Asia’s richest person in February.
He was worth $90.1 billion at the time—and ranked tenth in the world. A college dropout (like Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard), 60-year-old Adani started a commodity exporting firm in 1988. He first appeared on Forbes’ list of the World’s Billionaires in 2008, worth $9.3 billion. In June, Adani and his family pledged to donate 600 billion rupees ($7.7 billion) to a range of social causes to mark his 60th birthday.
Following his big gift news, Bill Gates falls just one spot on Forbes’ Real-Time Ranking of the World’s Billionaires, to No. 5 richest in the world, worth an estimated $102 billion at the close of U.S. trading on Thursday.
Things to know about Gautam Adani
- Infrastructure tycoon Gautam Adani controls Mundra Port, India’s largest, in his home state of Gujarat.
- His $13 billion (revenue) Adani Group’s interests span infrastructure, commodities, power generation and transmission and real estate.
- Adani acquired a 74% stake in Mumbai International Airport, India’s second-busiest, in September 2020. He’s now the country’s biggest airport operator.
- Adani wants to be the world’s largest producer of green energy and has said he will invest upto $70 billion on renewable energy projects.
- In May 2022, he made a big entry into cement when he won the race to acquire Swiss giant Holcim’s cement business in India for $10.5 billion.
- Adani owns Abbot Point, a controversial coal mining project in Australia, whose Carmichael coal mine is billed as one of the world’s largest.
- Adani is a college dropout, who spurned his father’s textile shop to set up a commodities export firm in 1988.
- Adani survived the terrorist attack in Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in 2008.
