Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group, became the world’s fourth-richest man on Thursday, overtaking Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates with an estimated fortune of $115.5 billion. The Indian businessman dominated Gates, whose net worth was pegged at $104.6 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time list of billionaires. Gates fell down the rankings after announcing he was donating $20 billion of his fortune to his nonprofit.
The 60-year-old business magnate is just behind Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault, Louis Vuitton’s family, and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, who was ranked as the richest person in the world with a net worth of $235.8 billion. The progress comes days after Adani announced that his group had won the tender to privatise the Israeli port along with Gadot. “I am pleased to have won the tender for the privatisation of the port of Haifa in Israel with our partner Gadot.” “This is of great strategic and historical importance to both countries,” Adani said in a tweet. Haifa Port is the largest of Israel’s three main international ports.
Meanwhile, Adani’s flagship unit, Adani Enterprise Ltd, has also applied to participate in the 5G spectrum auction to be held on July 26. Adani Data Networks reported a net worth of Rs 248.35 crore in its bid to participate in the auction at the close of application on July 8, according to information released by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). In May 2024, it made a major foray into cement when it won the race to acquire Swiss giant Holcim’s cement business in India for $10.5 billion.