By David Danyel Photographs by Bloomberg | Nov. 22, 2024 Updated 12:31 a.m. ET

Gautam Adani, the second-richest person in India, is facing bribery charges in the US and business tumult globally.

Adani is the founder and chairman of the Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate with businesses spanning energy, mining, ports, and airports. The Adani Group owns India’s largest commercial port and has a controlling stake in Mumbai’s international airport.

On Wednesday, New York prosecutors said Adani executives paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to the Indian government and hid them from US investors. The Adani Group called the allegations “baseless.” 

The charges wiped out billions from Adani’s and his brother’s paper fortunes. Shares of companies related to Adani, including his flagship Adani Enterprises, Adani Green Energy, and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd., crashed 20% in the first two hours of trade on Thursday, wiping out more than $30 billion.

The charges led to immediate business fallout. Following the news, Adani Green Energy canceled plans to raise $600 million in US dollar-denominated bonds, the company said in a statement to the National Stock Exchange of India. On Thursday, Kenya’s president canceled deals with the Adani Group for its main airport and for power line construction. 

A short seller’s report sent stocks down

The indictment isn’t the first serious bout of trouble for Adani.

A 2023 report by Hindenburg Research, an investment-research firm and short seller, sent Adani’s wealth on a downward spiral. In the report, which Hindenburg said took two years to compile, the short-seller accused the Adani Group of a “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme.” Adani companies’ stocks tumbled but later recovered.

The Adani Group has said it was exploring legal action against Hindenburg and released a 413-page report which said that Hindenburg’s claims were “nothing but a lie.” It called Hindenburg’s document a “malicious combination of selective misinformation and concealed facts relating to baseless and discredited allegations.” 

Hindenburg criticized the group’s response, saying it failed to address many of its questions.

Adani Group did not ultimately sue Hindenburg over the report.

From diamond sorter to tycoon

Adani was born in Ahmedabad, in the Indian state of Gujarat, in 1962. He dropped out of university after his second year studying commerce, according to Silicon India. He then turned to the diamond industry, first as a sorter and then as a trader in Mumbai.

After his brother purchased a plastic company, Adani started working with him and began importing PVC. In 1988, he set up Adani Enterprises.

Today, the Adani Group comprises 10 listed companies with a combined 46,000 employees.

The billionaire is a key ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose government has inked infrastructure and other deals with Adani’s companies. Bloomberg deemed Modi “the foundation of the tycoon’s empire.”

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates that Adani is currently worth $85.5 billion. That makes him the 18th-richest person in the world and puts him behind Mukesh Ambani, the richest person in India, whose wealth is estimated at $94.3 billion. Ambani controls Reliance Industries, another multinational conglomerate.