White the US tech companies soar and their stock market price is on a constant fall, in 2022 the Indian industry is on a gradual rise. As a result, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lost his second place on Forbes’s richest man list. An Indian tycoon overtook him and looks like he will continue to raise with time.
The Indian tycoon that climbs steadily and securely on the wealth rankings is Gautam Adani. He started the year in 14th place on the list but climbed up to second place in a record-breaking period of several months. The current net worth of Adani is around $147 billion, about $120 billion shorter than Elon Musk, the wealthiest man.
Jeff Bezos Is No Longer The Second World’s Richest Man – Losses To Gautam Adani
Adani’s company stock market price topped this week and the price per share currently is 1000% more than what it was back in 2020. On the contrary, Bezos’s Amazon is shattered as its stock market price declined by 26% since the beginning of 2022.
Gautam Adani became the wealthiest person in India back in February. He became a centibillionaire in April his raise in wealth continued as he passed both Bill Gates and Bernard Arnault. He passed them in just two months.
On Friday morning, the 16th of September, Gautam Adani’s net worth was more or less fluctuating in numbers similar to those of Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault. In the morning he surpassed both Bernard and Bezos. This was followed by a slight shake-up which pushed Adani back to third place. Bezos took over the second place once more. By the afternoon, at around 5 pm, Arnault had $154 billion, Adani $152 billion and Bezos has $146 billion.
This is the first time in history, that a businessman from Asia or India in particular becomes wealthier than sounding names such as Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos. Until now, the usual scenario was that US tech entrepreneurs topped the list.
Gautam Adani is in the diamond, coal, and ports industries. His life story is interesting, as he dropped out of college aged 20 to pursue a career in investments. Then he poured his fortune into investments in the plastic importing business. Since then, he is into everything you can imagine to make a profit. From airports to data centers. Green energy, cement, real estate, and media – his businesses continue to pile up and he becomes wealthier by the day.
India’s largest private port and airport operators, city gas distributors, and coal miner companies are all in Adani’s ownership. His empire keeps growing and expanding in all businesses that make a profit.
This sudden leap in wealth happened because the world is going through a massive energy crisis. Something that Adani is into. As the demand for energy surged, investors flocked to Gautam Adani’s businesses.
In 2021, Gautam Adani decided to get into green power as well. He poured $70 billion into the industry, which became the most criticized investment as most of his money comes from fossil fuel and coal.
This move gained a lot of additional investments in his businesses. It added about $70 billion to his wealth in the first year since his entrance into the business endeavor. Forbes marks this as one of the greatest jumps in wealth in the last year, which comes at a time when most wealthy people keep losing money.
Adani ‘took advantage’ of Bezos’ divorce as well. The divorce cost the Amazon founder more than $45 billion. Since Bezos’ wealth dropped significantly, it was easier for Adani to surpass him.
The path to second place was eased by the massive charity donations that fellow billionaires like Bill Gates did in the past year or two. For example, Bezos gave about $10 billion in charities for fighting climate change to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet happen to be one of the greatest philanthropists of the past decade. They started the Giving Pledge initiative in 2010 with the intention to ease a growing inequality gap. The Microsoft owner transferred more than $20 billion to Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The same foundation received $35 billion from Buffet as well.
Elon Musk seats securely in the first place on the wealthiest person list. He is far above all of these characters as his net worth surges to more than $270 billion at the moment. He is a co-founder of six companies, Tesla and SpaceX being his most profitable ones.
Bernard Arnault on the other side is into products for beauty, fashion, and luxury goods. He is into luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Sephora, Dom Perignon, and Fenty Beauty.
Jeff Bezos was the wealthiest person in the world for quite some time. However, his reign ended after Elon Musk skyrocketed with Tesla in 2020. Jeff Bezos’s trademark company is Amazon, however, he has investments in e-commerce, cloud computing, streaming, and various other businesses. He is also the owner of Blue Origin and The Washington Post.
The Stock Market in the USA is currently on a constant drop. Last week was one of the worst weeks for Wall Street’s Stock Market. However, investors with years of experience warn that this is not the worst that we are about to see in the following period. According to analysts and investors, the stock market price is to reach the bottom in the following period.
The restrictions implemented on Russia and the need of seeking energetics elsewhere caused the stock market prices to drop. According to investors, this shattered the supply chains to the US and the level of uncertainty of the situation is unseen until now.
