[imagesource: Jose Luis Gonzalez / Illustration / Reuters]

I’m not even going to attempt to work out how high you’d have to stack $100 notes to reach the $100 billion mark.

You can have five points for figuring out that you will need a billion such notes but we’re not going further down that road.

The $100 billion club is, according to CNN, probably the most elite club in the world. Last week, there were just nine people in that club, but over the weekend India’s Gautam Adani (below) became number 10.

The 59-year-old college dropout, who is now the richest person in Asia, has had an exceptional two years:

The founder of the Adani Group controls companies ranging from ports and aerospace to thermal energy and coal, and has seen his fortune soar by nearly $90 billion over the last two years.

Image: Instagram / @gautam.adani

Shares of some Adani companies have jumped more than 1,000% since June 2020, a sign that investors are optimistic about the billionaire industrialist’s ability to bet on sectors such as infrastructure and renewable energy, which are key to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic development goals.

In the four months of this year alone, his net worth has risen by roughly $25 billion.

Condolences to fellow Indian Mukesh Ambani, who is now the second-richest person in Asia. On the plus side, according to the Forbes real-time billionaire tracker, Ambani has also just about joined the $100 billion club.

Ambani’s fortune stands at $100,6 billion, which makes him the 11th wealthiest person in the world, ahead of Mexico’s Carlos Slim ($91,6 billion) and Mark Zuckerberg ($83,4 billion).

It’s a tighter affair in the top 10, with Steve Balmer at $100,7 billion, Adani in ninth with $110,8 billion (up an incredible $7,3 billion in the past 24 hours alone), and eighth-placed Sergey Brin on $116,1 billion.

Elon Musk is still comfortably the wealthiest person on the planet, having once again passed the $300 billion mark. Jeff Bezos is way back in second with a net worth of $194,1 billion.

I reckon we might be in for another jibe from Musk on Twitter soon.

[sources:cnn&forbes]