New Delhi, Sept 16: Gautam Adani became the world’s second richest person today, but only for a brief period. The tycoon surpassed Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Louis Vuitton’s Bernard Arnault to grab the second spot with a net worth $154.7 billion, showed Forbes’ real-time billionaires list, before he was pushed back to the third position by Arnault.
Elon Musk remains the richest person with a net worth of $273.5 billion.
Last month too, Mr Adani had overtaken Arnault to grab the third spot, but was behind Musk and Bezos. This time he overtook Bezos for a brief period.
With him occupying the second spot, Arnault was pushed to the third with his family’s net worth falling to $153.5 billion as it slumped by $4.9 billion. Arnault has reoccupied the position with his wealth totalling $152.8 billion though it fell further.
Mr Adani’s wealth, meanwhile, slumped to $151.3 billion as his gains were slash to $1.1 billion from over $4 billion, and he settled at the third position.
Bezos stands fourth with a wealth of $149.7 billion that declined by $2.3 billion.
Mukesh Ambani, who heads the Reliance Industries Ltd, is at the eighth spot and is worth $92 billion.
Mr Adani, a first-generation entrepreneur, heads the Adani Group which comprises of seven publicly listed companies spanning infrastructure, mining, energy, and other sectors.
Over the past five years, Adani Enterprises has invested heavily in new growth sectors including airports, cement, copper refining, data centres, green hydrogen, petrochemical refining, roads and solar cell manufacturing.
It also plans to foray into the telecom space and has massive plans to grow its green hydrogen and airports businesses.
Adani Group has also committed $70 billion for green energy infrastructure. (Agencies)