Indian tycoon Gautam Adani named world’s third richest person

theguardian.com:

The Indian tycoon Gautam Adani has been named the world’s third richest person with an estimated $137bn (£117bn) fortune and become the first Asian person to break into the top three of world’s wealthy.

Adani, 60, who found the mining-to-energy conglomerate Adani Group after dropping out of university, was on Tuesday ranked third on the daily-updated Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

His wealth has soared by $61bn so far this year, according to the index, as the market value of many of his companies have soared. Many of his businesses are involved in natural gas, coal mining and electricity generation, and are likely to have benefited from the global energy price surge.

Adani took the third spot after leapfrogging Bernard Arnault, the French billionaire who owns most of the luxury brand portfolio LVMH. Arnault’s fortune has slipped by $42bn so this year to $136bn. All of the billionaires in the top 10 except Adani have experienced falls in their wealth so far this year – after making massive gains during the pandemic.

The only people richer than Adani are Tesla boss Elon Musk with an estimated $251bn fortune and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos with $153bn.

Adani’s conglomerate owns India’s largest private sector seaport and airport operator as well as a huge coalmine in Queensland, Australia. The company has faced fierce criticism for its environmental impact on the Great Barrier Reef as well as its use of billions of litres of water a year.

The company last year promised to invest $70bn in green energy and become the world’s largest renewables producer.

Some critics suggest that Adani has benefited financially from his close relationship with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.

When six Indian airports were set for privatisation on 2018,