Gautam Adani, founder and chairman of Adani Group, on Tuesday became the world's third-richest person, overtaking Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of Louis Vuitton, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Data.
The 60-year-old Adani is a college drop-out, who started his career with Diamond before launching the Adani group in 1988. His companies are involved in all sorts of sectors, including airports, fast-moving consumer goods, ports, renewable energy, and power distribution.
Adani group is the largest port operator and coal operator in India.
According to Bloomberg, this is the first time any Asian has appeared among the top three of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Adani's net worth is now estimated to be $137.4Bln. This leaves him trailing only two other billionaires - Tesla chief Elon Musk (estimated worth of $251Bln), and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (estimated at $153Bln).
Adani has added approximately $60.9Bln to his fortune in 2022.
As the Industrialist continues to see his wealth grow exponentially, Fitch group subsidiary CreditSights, in its August report, said: "Adani's empire is deeply over-leveraged" and may land in a debt trap.
According to Forbes, two years ago the net worth of Adani was estimated to be only $8.9Bln. His wealth soared to an estimated $50.5Bln in March 2021 and almost doubled to $90Bln in March 2022, as Adani Group stocks showed stupendous growth.