According to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List, Indian entrepreneur Gautam Adani has passed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to become the fourth richest person in the world. The 60-year-old business tycoon’s net worth reached $115.5 billion on Thursday eclipsing Mr. Gates whose fortunes are at $104.6 billion. Mukesh Ambani, a fellow countryman, comes in at number 10 on the list with $90 billion.
Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, is at the top of the list with $235.8 billion. Musk has been embroiled in a major controversy since he attempted to purchase Twitter but ultimately decided against it.
The chairman of the Adani group is renowned for growing a modest commodities trading company into a conglomerate that includes renewable energy, ports, and mining.
“Some of Adani Group’s listed stocks have soared more than 600% in the past two years on bets his push into green energy and infrastructure will pay off as PM Modi looks to revive the $2.9 trillion economy and meet India’s carbon net-zero target by 2070,” Bloomberg had recently reported when he overtook Mr. Ambani as Asia’s richest person.
“In barely three years, Adani has gained control of seven airports and almost a quarter of India’s air traffic. His group now owns the country’s largest airport operator, power generator, and city gas retailer in the non-state sector.” On Thursday, Mr. Adani announced that his company, along with Gadot, had won the bid to privatize an Israeli port.
The largest of Israel’s three main international seaports is the Port of Haifa. Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and Adani Data Networks have all submitted applications to take part in the upcoming 5G auction. It’s possible that some frequency bands may receive competitive bids during the spectrum auction, which will begin on July 26.
Adani Group announced on Saturday that it is competing to buy spectrum, which it said will be used to build a private network to support its companies, including data centers, airports, and power.
