Gautam Adani: Who is the Indian tycoon facing US bribery charges?

Gautam Adani, the billionaire behind India’s Adani Group, has built an empire spanning coal, airports, cement and media, propelling him to fame as one of the wealthiest people alive.

But his rise hasn’t been without turbulence.

Adani’s fortune has been shaken by corporate fraud allegations, a stock crash and now a US indictment accusing him of orchestrating a US$265 million bribery scheme.

Who is the founder behind the sprawling conglomerate, and how did the 62-year-old become one of the world’s richest men?

FROM HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT TO TYCOON

Unlike many billionaires who inherit their wealth, Adani came from a middle-class family. 

Born in Ahmedabad in western India's Gujarat state, Adani dropped out of school at 16 to become a diamond trader in financial capital Mumbai. 

After a short stint in his brother's plastics business, he launched the flagship family conglomerate that bears his name in 1988 by branching out into the export trade.

His big break came seven years later with a contract to build and operate a commercial shipping port in Gujarat. It grew to become India's largest at a time when most ports were government-owned.

Today, Adani Group spans airports, shipping ports, power generation, energy transmission and even cooking oil, making it one of India’s most influential conglomerates.

More recently, Adani set his eyes on becoming India’s biggest renewable energy player by 2030.

Outside India, it runs massive coal mining operations in Indonesia and Australia and has been described as the world’s largest private developer of coal.

Adani is worth US$69.8 billion, according to Forbes magazine, making him the world's 22nd richest person and India's second-richest person behind Reliance Industries Chair Mukesh Ambani.

NARROWLY ESCAPED DEATH

On New Year's Day in 1998, Adani and an associate were reportedly kidnapped by gunmen demanding a US$1.5 million ransom, before being later released at an unknown location.

A decade later, he was dining at Mumbai's Taj Mahal Palace hotel when it was besieged by militants, who killed 160 people in one of India's worst terror attacks.

Trapped with hundreds of others, Adani reportedly hid in the basement all night before he was rescued by security personnel early the next morning.

"I saw death at a distance of just 15 feet," he said of the experience after his private aircraft landed in his hometown Ahmedabad later that day.

A self-described introvert, Adani keeps a low profile and rarely speaks to the media, often sending lieutenants to front corporate events.

"I'm not a social person that wants to go to parties," he told the Financial Times in a 2013 interview.

Married to dentist Priti Adani, he has two sons, Karan and Jeet, both of whom are involved in the company businesses, like many others in the family.

According to one person with direct knowledge of his dealings, he has a "very hands-on" style of running his empire, which he said he aims to pass on to the next generation in the family when he turns 70.

HINDENBURG CRISIS

Adani's businesses saw US$150 billion wiped from its market value in 2023 after a shock report by short-seller Hindenburg Research accused it of "brazen" corporate fraud.

It claimed Adani Group had engaged in a "stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades".

The report also said a pattern of "government leniency towards the group", stretching back decades, had left investors, journalists, citizens and politicians unwilling to challenge its conduct "for fear of reprisal".

Hindenburg is known as a short-seller, a Wall Street term for traders that essentially bet that prices of certain stocks will fall, and it had made such investments in relation to the Adani Group.

The Adani group dismissed Hindenburg’s allegations, saying none were “based on independent or journalistic fact-finding”. Adani’s response included documents and data tables and it said the group had made all necessary regulatory disclosures and had abided by local laws.

Adani saw his net worth shrink by around US$60 billion in the two weeks following the release of the report. Before shares in Adani Group companies tanked last year, he had briefly become the world's wealthiest person after Tesla CEO Elon Musk. 

The group has since recouped some of the losses and now has a combined valuation of US$141 billion.

CLOSE TIES WITH MODI

Adani's success has repeatedly been linked to his proximity to power, with critics pointing to his close ties to the government and to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The tycoon's conglomerate offered Modi - also a Gujarat native - the use of a private company jet during the 2014 election campaign that swept his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to office.

Critics have also accused the government of adjusting bidding rules to make it easier for Adani to win contracts to operate airports.

The company denies this, saying contracts were won fairly through a transparent process.

Before Modi took office, Adani was friendly with the rival Congress Party, which governed Gujarat state when many of his early projects began.

Adani has been “close to every politician in power”, R N Bhaskar, a journalist who wrote a biography on Adani, told The Associated Press.

But supporters say Adani has cleverly aligned the group’s priorities with those of the government by investing in key industries like renewable energy, defence and agriculture.

His projects overseas, in strategically important countries like neighboring Sri Lanka, also help New Delhi compete with rival Beijing in the region.

Stocks of companies under Adani Group have sky-rocketed between 300 per cent and 4,500 per cent since Mr Modi's second term in office in 2019.

But a post-election rout wiped nearly US$45 billion in the group's market value in a single day last June, after the country's ruling party failed to secure a landslide victory.

On the international front, Adani praised Donald Trump soon after his US election victory. 

Adani said on X that the US President-elect was "the embodiment of unbreakable tenacity, unshakeable grit, relentless determination and the courage to stay true to his beliefs".

Congratulating Trump, Adani said last week his group would invest US$10 billion in US energy and infrastructure projects, without providing details other than the investment aimed to create 15,000 jobs.

BRIBERY, FRAUD CHARGES

Adani was charged in a federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday for his alleged role in a US$265 million scheme to bribe Indian officials, plunging his conglomerate deep into crisis for the second time in two years.

Multiple counts of fraud - which US authorities say involved a firm that was listed in New York and affected American investors - were levelled against Adani and seven other defendants.

Shares and bonds of Adani firms tumbled on Thursday and Adani Green Energy ADNA.NS, the company at the centre of the allegations, also cancelled a US$600 million bond sale.

Arrest warrants have been issued in the US for Adani and his nephew Sagar and prosecutors plan to hand those warrants to foreign law enforcement, court records show.

According to an indictment, some conspirators referred privately to Adani with the code names "Numero uno" and "the big man", while Sagar Adani allegedly used his cellphone to track specifics about the bribes.

Adani Group said in a statement that the allegations were "baseless and denied", adding that it would seek "all possible legal recourse".

US federal prosecutors said the defendants agreed to pay the bribes to Indian government officials to obtain power supply contracts expected to yield US$2 billion of profit over 20 years, and develop India's largest solar power plant project.

They also said the Adanis and another executive at Adani Green Energy, former CEO Vneet Jaain, raised more than US$3 billion in loans and bonds by hiding their corruption from lenders and investors.

The three were charged with securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy. The Adanis were also charged in a parallel US Securities and Exchange Commission civil case.