Gautam Adani (born 24 June 1962) is an Indian industrialist and the founder and chairman of the Adani Group. A college dropout who began as a diamond sorter in Mumbai, he built a conglomerate that runs India’s largest private ports and airports business, along with major interests in power, green energy, cement, mining, edible oils and media. In 2022 he briefly became Asia’s richest person. His group has since faced major scrutiny, including a US short-seller’s report and a US bribery indictment, both of which it denied.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Gautam Shantilal Adani |
| Born | 24 June 1962, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India |
| Age | 64 |
| Position | Founder and Chairman, Adani Group |
| Company founded | Adani Exports (now Adani Enterprises), 1988 |
| Education | Left Gujarat University without completing a degree |
| Spouse | Priti Adani (m. 1986) |
| Children | Karan Adani, Jeet Adani |
| Businesses | Ports, airports, power, green energy, cement, mining, media |
Early Life
Adani was born in Ahmedabad into a Jain family of modest means. His father was a small textile trader, and Gautam was one of eight children. He enrolled at Gujarat University to study commerce but dropped out. In 1978, as a teenager, he moved to Mumbai and worked as a diamond sorter before starting his own diamond brokerage.
Career
In 1981 Adani returned to Ahmedabad to run a plastics unit bought by his elder brother. Importing the raw material, PVC, became his entry into global trading. In 1988 he founded Adani Exports, a commodities trading firm that later became Adani Enterprises, the group’s flagship. India’s economic liberalisation in 1991 opened new opportunities, and the business grew rapidly.
In the mid-1990s Adani won the right to develop a port at Mundra on the Gujarat coast. It grew into India’s largest commercial port, and Adani Ports and SEZ became the country’s biggest private port operator. The group expanded into thermal power through Adani Power. It later moved into renewable energy through Adani Green Energy, which is building one of the world’s largest renewable energy parks at Khavda in Gujarat. From 2019 it also won contracts to run major airports, including Mumbai’s.
In 2022 Adani acquired Holcim’s Indian businesses, Ambuja Cements and ACC, in a deal worth about US$10.5 billion. That made the group India’s second-largest cement maker. The same year it took control of the broadcaster NDTV. As Adani Group shares soared in 2022, he overtook Mukesh Ambani to become Asia’s richest person and was briefly ranked among the three richest people in the world.
Hindenburg Report and Legal Cases
In January 2023 the US short-seller Hindenburg Research accused the group of stock manipulation and accounting fraud. The Adani Group rejected the report as baseless, but the allegations wiped tens of billions of dollars off its market value. In September 2025, India’s market regulator SEBI said it had found no violations on the key allegations and dismissed them.
In November 2024 US prosecutors in New York indicted Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar Adani and others. They alleged a scheme to pay bribes to Indian officials to win solar power contracts and to mislead US investors. The group denied the allegations. The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s related civil case was resolved through consent judgments in 2026. The criminal case was dismissed by a US judge in August 2026 after prosecutors moved to drop it.
Personal Life
Adani married Priti Vora, a dentist, in 1986. She chairs the Adani Foundation, the group’s charitable arm, which works in education, health and community development. Their elder son, Karan, is managing director of Adani Ports and SEZ. Their younger son, Jeet, oversees the airports and digital businesses and married Diva Shah in February 2025. Adani has survived two dramatic ordeals: he was kidnapped for ransom in 1998 and later released, and in 2008 he was among the guests trapped at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace Hotel during the terrorist attacks.
Recognition
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Gautam Adani born?
Gautam Adani was born on 24 June 1962 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.
