RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani is now the world’s 21st richest person after slipping 12 spots from his previous rank in 2019. However, he continues to be the richest person in India with a collective worth of $36.8 billion. The billionaire has also lost his earlier title of being Asia’s richest person to China’s e-commerce mogul Jack Ma who now has a worth of $38.8 billion. China’s Ma Huateng, who is the CEO of Tencent, is also ahead of Mukesh Ambani in the Asia list. The sudden fall in the wealth of India’s richest person can be ascribed to the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, one in every two rich people on the planet have lost their wealth as compared to last year due to coronavirus.
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“The richest people on earth are not immune to the coronavirus. As the pandemic tightened its grip on Europe and America, global equity markets imploded, tanking many fortunes,” Forbes said in a statement. This year, there are 58 lesser billionaires than last year in the Forbes’ list. Also, about $700 billion of fortunes have been wiped out in 2020 with the collective wealth of the billionaires standing at $8 trillion now. Meanwhile, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the richest person despite parting with a massive fortune due to his divorce. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is the second wealthiest with $98 billion fortunes and French fashion mogul Bernard Arnault is the third richest with $76 billion of fortunes.
Meanwhile, DMart’s Radhakishan Damani is the second richest Indian on the Forbes list. He and his family have a collective worth of $13.8 billion. Philanthropist Shiv Nadar, banker Uday Kotak and industrialist Gautam Adani are among the top five richest Indians. There are a total of nine billionaires from India in the Forbes’ list including Lakshmi Mittal, Kumar Birla, and Cyrus Poonawalla.