Gautam Adani has become the world’s third-richest person. It’s the first time an Asian person has broken into the top three of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. With a $137.4 billion fortune, Mr Adani has overtaken France’s Bernard Arnault and now trails just Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos of the US in the ranking.
Mr Adani has added $60.9 billion to his fortune in 2022 alone, five times more than anyone else. He first overtook Mr Ambani as the richest Asian in February, became a centibillionaire in April and surpassed Microsoft Corp’s Bill Gates as the world’s fourth-richest person last month.
Mr Adani was able to move past some of the world’s richest US billionaires partly because they’ve recently boosted their philanthropy. Gates said in July he was transferring $20 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, while Warren Buffett has already donated more than $35 billion to the charity.
The two, along with Gates’s ex-wife Melinda French Gates, started the Giving Pledge initiative in 2010, vowing to give away most of their fortunes in their lifetimes. The billions of dollars spent on philanthropy has pushed them lower on the Bloomberg wealth ranking. Gates is now fifth and Buffett is sixth.