The president of Adani Group, Gautam Adani, passed the president and CEO of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, in the ranking today.
Now, Adani is the second richest man in the world, with a net worth of $155.5 billion in the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires Ranking, with wealth increasing by $5.2 billion, or 3.49% compared to yesterday.
Arnault, whose fortune is $300 million less than that of Adani ($155.2 billion), dropped to third place in the ranking.
Adani also leaves behind in the ranking the president and founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, whose wealth has fallen by 2.3 billion dollars, or 1.49%, to 149.7 billion dollars. Tesla CEO Elon Musk remains the richest man in the world, with a net worth of $273.5 billion.
Adani owns shares in six listed companies that operate in ports, airports, green energy, data centers, etc. Adani became Asia's richest man in February this year, when he overtook Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, whose net worth is $93.4 billion, to eighth in the world ranking.
Shares in conglomerate Adani Enterprises are surging and hit a record high of 3,749.15 rupees ($46) a share yesterday, more than doubling from a year ago. Shares in Adani Power have more than tripled in the past year, to 398.4 rupees ($4.9), in response to rising energy demand. Shares in renewable energy company Adani Green Energy have also nearly doubled in the past year, reaching 2,343.05 rupees ($29.2).
Adani's desire to expand has led it to make bold moves to enter other activities. The group is finalizing the $10.5 billion acquisition of the Indian arm of Swiss cement maker Holcim Group.
In this deal, Adani Group will buy shares from two listed cement companies: 63.11% from Ambuja Cement and 54.53% from ACC. These transactions, for which the open offers were completed last week, will make Adani the second largest cement producer in India.
