At the start of the financial year in March, Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani were neck-and-neck on the Real-Time Billionaires List compiled by Forbes magazine. In fact, Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani was slightly ahead of Mr Adani, with a net worth of $90.7 billion.
But since then, Mukesh Ambani's net worth has grown to $92.1 billion, according to Forbes - a gain of $1.5 billion, while Mr Adani has grown his net worth by $66 billion to a mammoth $155 billion.
Gautam Adani is currently the world's second-richest person on the Real-Time Billionaires List compiled by Forbes, only behind Elon Musk. The second-richest Indian, Mukesh Ambani, is placed eighth on the list. His net worth: 40 per cent less than Mr Adani's.
It's the first time someone from Asia has featured this highly in the top echelons of the wealth index, which has been dominated by US tech entrepreneurs. This meteoric rise has been driven by a diversification of the Adani conglomerate.
For decades, Mr Adani's business was focused on sectors like ports, coal mining and shipping, areas that Mr Ambani stayed clear of amid its heavy investments in oil. But over the past year, that's changed dramatically.
He has slowly started foraying into petrochemicals, energy and media, sectors that Ambani's Reliance already dominates.
Most of Mr Adani's new forays are nascent, and experts say the full impact is hard to gauge immediately. But the competition between the two conglomerates is expected to dominate and maybe reshape India's business landscape.
