Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group, became the fourth richest man in the world, according to the Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List, overtaking Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates with an estimated wealth of $115.5 billion on Thursday.
The Indian businessman eclipsed Gates, whose net worth is pegged at $104.6 billion and slipped in the rankings after he announced that he would be donating $20 billion from his wealth to his non-profit organization.
The 60-year-old business tycoon is now only behind Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault & the Louis Vuitton family, and SpaceX’s Elon Musk who has a net worth of $235.8 billion.
The development comes days after Adani announced that his group has won the tender for privatization of the Port of Haifa, the largest of Israel’s three major international seaports, in partnership with Gadot.
A few months ago, Adani also made big strides in the cement industry, as he won the race to acquire Swiss giant Holcim’s cement business in India.