India's Gautam Adani overtakes Amazon's Jeff Bezos to become world's second richest

NEW YORK: Indian tycoon Gautam Adani has surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the world's second richest man, making him his country's first person to reach such an elevated level in global wealth, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed Friday, said Sputnik.

Adani, who began the year on the 14th spot of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has a current estimated fortune of US$146.9 billion that trails only the US$260 billion controlled by Elon Musk, the founder of electric carmaker Tesla and the present richest person in the world, the index showed.

News service Bloomberg, which published the billionaires' index, reported that Adani's worth climbed after shares of his flagship Adani Enterprises Ltd. surged to a record high this week. Some of Adani's group companies have also climbed more than 1,000 per cent in value since 2020, the report added.

Bezos's net worth, meanwhile, dropped to US$145.8 billion at last count as a renewed selloff in the shares of Big Tech companies on Wall Street hammered the fortunes of the richest Americans in the sector. Shares of Amazon, on their own, are down more than 25 per cent this year.

-- BERNAMA