With $90.7 billion, Ambani richest Asian

Mumbai: Mukesh Ambani, promoter of India’s most valued company Reliance Industries, is the richest Asian, followed closely by Gautam Adani, promoter of Adani Group, according to the latest billionaire list released by Forbes. Compared to Ambani’s total net worth at $90.7 billion, Adani’s was $90 billion, Forbes estimated, based on data till March 11.

In the global pecking order, Ambani is the 10th richest, followed by Adani at the 11th spot. The latest list also showed that Adani’s net worth had increased nearly $40 billion since April 2021, the third-biggest addition by anyone in the world. It added that there were 166 Indian billionaires. Of these, the list featured Falguni Nayar, the main promoter of fashion retailer FSN E-Commerce Ventures (owner of Nykaa brand) who has a net worth of $4.5 billion. Forbes called Nayar, a former investment banker who quit her job to start the online fashion retailer less than a decade ago, a ‘New beauty billionaire’.

The global list was topped by Elon Musk, the founder of electric vehicles major Tesla and also space exploration & tourism company SpaceX. With a net worth of $219 billion, Musk topped the Forbes annual billionaire list for the first time, replacing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who’s at the second spot with a net worth of $117 billion.

Musk also topped the list of billionaires who saw their net worth spurt the most during the last one year. Since April 2021, he has added $68 billion to his fortunes.

The rich list also saw emergence of Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, who made billions as his crypto exchange Binance turned out to be the biggest trading platform globally. In last one year, Changpeng’s net worth jumped 70%, or about $63.1 billion, to an estimated $65 billion as “new information about his stake and success of the exchange” flowed in, Forbes said.