Billionaire Gautam Adani overtook Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to become the world’s sixth-richest person with a net worth of $118 billion. Adani’s fortune has surged by 53% so far this year, driven by meteoric rise in the share prices of Adani Green Energy, Adani Enterprises, Adani Total Gas, Adani Power and Adani Transmission. The Indian tycoon now needs $9 billion more in wealth to surpass Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet and become the world’s fifth richest person. So far in 2022, Gautam Adani is the largest wealth creator among the top ten of Bloomberg Billionaires Index. While his net worth has risen $41.1 billion, world’s richest Elon Musk’s fortune has fallen $19.4 billion and Jeff Bezos’ $17.1 billion.

What is catapulting Adani’s net worth?

Gautam Adani has been pushing into clean energy, airports and power plants. The mega stock market gainer that has catapulted Gautam Adani among the world’s richest top 6 is Adani Green Energy, the renewable energy company of which he owns more than 60%. The stock has surged 111% so far in 2022, leading to Adani Green Energy toppling Bharti Airtel to enter the list of top 10 most valued firms by market capitalisation.

Gautam Adani’s net worth got a push on Friday after news surfaced that Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Co (IHC) invested $2 billion in three of Adani’s green energy-focused businesses: Adani Green Energy, Adani Transmission and Adani Enterprises. IHC is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security advisor and the brother of the country’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Net worth more than doubled in one year

Shares of Adani Green Energy have jumped around 25% since the Friday announcement. Adani Transmission and Adani Enterprises–his other most valuable investments–also rose, by 11% and 3%, respectively. After a meteoric rise in his net worth, entering the $100 billion club on 4 April, the founder and chairman of the Adani group, has become the only Indian on Bloomberg’s top-10. The 59-year-old mogul’s net worth has seen a massive increase from $54 billion in April 2021 to $118 billion today, a rise of over 100 per cent in one year.

Meanwhile, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, who remained the richest Indian in the list for quite a few years, now stands at the 11th spot in world ranking with a net worth of $95.2 billion. Note that the Bloomberg Billionaires Index measures personal wealth based on the changes in the stock markets, economy, and other reporting.