Indian businessman and diamond trader Gautam Adani became the third richest person in the world, who dropped out of his university studies and tried his luck for the first time before turning to coal mining.
According to Arabiya Net, it is the first time that an Asian person has entered the top three positions in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as his compatriot Mukesh Ambani and Jack Ma of China did not reach this rank.
With a fortune of $137.4 billion, Adani surpassed French Bernard Arnault, trailing only Americans Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Adani, 60, has spent the past few years expanding his company's business from coal to ports, venturing into everything from data centers to cement, media and alumina.
The group now owns the largest operator of ports and airports in India and the largest gas distributor and coal mine. While the Carmichael mine in Australia has been criticized by environmentalists, in November it pledged to invest $70 billion in green energy to become the world's largest producer of renewable energy.
As his empire expanded into one of the world's largest conglomerates fueling remarkable wealth gains, concerns about rapid growth grew. CreditSights said in a report this month that Adani's deal spurt has been financed mostly with debt and that his empire is overleveraged.
Some lawmakers and market watchers have also raised concerns about opaque shareholder structures and a lack of analytical coverage at Adani Group companies. However, stocks have soared - some over 1,000% since 2020, some with a P/E of 750 times - as the billionaire focused on areas Prime Minister Narendra Modi considers crucial to India's long-term goals.
Adani added $60.9 billion to his fortune in 2022 alone, 5 times more than anyone else added. He overtook Ambani for the first time as the richest Asian man in February, and surpassed Microsoft's Bill Gates as the world's fourth richest person last month.
Adani has also managed to overtake some of the world's richest American billionaires in part because they recently boosted their philanthropy. Gates said in July that he was transferring $20 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, while Warren Buffett had already donated more than $35 billion to the charity.
The two, along with Gates' ex-wife Melinda French Gates, started the Giving Pledge initiative in 2010, pledging to give away most of their fortunes in their lifetime. Billions of dollars spent on philanthropy have pushed it to the bottom of Bloomberg's Billionaires Ranking. Gates is currently ranked fifth and Buffett is sixth.
Adani also increased his charitable donations. In June, he pledged to donate $7.7 billion to social causes for his 60th birthday.
