India’s wealthiest man and Reliance Industries chairman, Mukesh Ambani has become the eighth richest man on the Harun Global Rich List 2021 published on Tuesday as his total wealth mounted by 24% in the past one year to $83 billion or close to Rs 6.09 lakh crore, as per reports.
Last week, Ambani was listed as the second richest in Asia.
Tesla’s Elon Musk has achieved the top spot in the list after his wealth grew by $197 billion that amounts to 328%. He added $151 billion in a single year. Three individuals added more than US$50 billion in a single year led by Elon Musk with $151 billion on the back of the rise of e-cars, followed by e-commerce Jeff Bezos of Amazon as the second richest with a tremendous $189 billion in net worth and Colin Huang of Pinduoduo added $50bn each.
"At this rate, expect to see fifty or more breakthrough the US$100bn mark within the next five years,” the Hurun report said.
India now has 209 billionaires of which 177 live in India, compared with 689 in the US. India last year added billionaires at a similar rate to the US -- 50 compared with 69. The other Indians who have been listed as the richest are - Gautam Adani & family (rank 48 with Rs 2.34 lakh crore wealth), Shiv Nadar & family (rank 58 with Rs 1.94 lakh crore wealth), Lakshmi N Mittal (rank 104 with Rs 1.40 lakh crore wealth), and Cyrus Poonawalla of Serum Institute (rank 113 with Rs 1.35 lakh crore). Jay Chaudhry or Zscaler, an IT services firm, saw maximum growth in his wealth as his wealth surged by 271% to Rs 96,000 crore.
Anas Rahman Junaid, MD and chief researcher of Hurun India said, “Indian wealth creation is dominated by cyclical/ traditional industries compared to tech-driven wealth creation in the USA and China. When the tech-driven wealth creation reaches full potential, India could potentially beat the USA in terms of the number of billionaires.”
Bernard Arnault, chief executive of LVMH Moët Henness, the world’s largest luxury-goods company, with a net worth of $114 billion, Microsoft founder Bill Gates with $110 billion and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg with $101 billion are under top five.
Globally, 421 billionaires were added in a year, taking their total number to a record 3,288, according to the 10th Edition of Global Rich List. Despite the pandemic, the total wealth of all billionaires across the globe climbed 32 per cent during the period under review to $14.7 trillion.