Indian Tycoons Face Reality Check As Wealth Drops By $100 Billion

This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of India’s Richest 2025. See the full list here.

India’s hopes of being on friendly terms with Trump 2.0 were dashed when the U.S. slapped 50% tariffs on the country. To soften the blow, the Indian government announced sweeping reductions in the goods and services tax in September to boost consumption by making a range of items, including cars, cheaper. But a weaker rupee and a 3% decline in the benchmark Sensex since we last measured fortunes resulted in a 9% erosion in combined wealth to $1 trillion.

Nearly two-thirds of those on the list are less well-off this year, including India’s richest person, , chairman and managing director of oil-to-telecoms behemoth Reliance Industries. His net worth declined by 12% or $14.5 billion, though he remains a “centibillionaire” with $105 billion. Ambani, who jumped into AI by setting up Reliance Intelligence, said he plans to list telecoms unit Jio in 2026.

At No. 2 is infrastructure tycoon Gautam Adani with a fortune of $92 billion shared with family. The founder and chairman of Adani Group got a reprieve in September when India’s securities regulator said U.S. short seller Hindenburg Research’s allegations of fraudulent transactions could not be established. The claims had triggered a massive sell-off in group companies’ shares in 2023.

The composition of the ten richest was unchanged from last year—though there was some reshuffle in the ranks—and nearly all saw their fortunes fall. The notable exception in this group was telecoms magnate Sunil Mittal, whose Bharti Enterprises last year acquired close to a 25% stake in British telecoms major BT, where he now has a board seat. Mittal was the biggest dollar gainer with his net worth, which he shares with his family, increasing by $3.5 billion to $34.2 billion. He climbed three places to No. 4, a posi­tion he had last occupied in 2008. Tech billionaire Shiv Nadar, last year’s fourth-richest, slipped to fifth place at a time when the country’s IT companies with U.S. outposts have to contend with the Trump administration’s decision to impose a $100,000 fee on new H1-B visas.

The three newcomers this year include the Doshi siblings, whose Waaree Energies, India’s largest maker of solar panels by capacity, got listed late last year at a 70% premium to its issue price, making all four brothers individual billionaires. With their combined wealth of $7.5 billion, they debut at No. 37. The other two are Alpana Dangi, who has a majority stake in listed financial firm Authum Investment and Infrastructure; and Sunil Vachani, founder and chairman of Dixon Technologies, which makes a range of electronic products from TV sets to smartphones for companies such as Samsung and Xiaomi.

There are four returnees to the ranks, including brothers Manohar Lal and Madhusudan Agarwal, whose fortune, drawn from popular Indian snacks brand Haldiram’s, is now clubbed with that of their older sibling Shiv Kishan Agrawal. The brothers, who spell their surnames slightly differently, merged their two companies and secured Singapore’s Temasek as an investor earlier this year at a $10 billion valuation for their Haldiram Snacks Food. Seven from last year dropped from the ranking and the cutoff to qualify for the list fell slightly to $3.2 billion.

Full Coverage of India’s Richest 2025:

Editing assistance and reporting by Phisanu Phromchanya. Additional reporting by Gloria Haraito and Yessar Rosendar.

Methodology

This list was compiled using shareholding and financial information obtained from the families and individuals, stock exchanges, analysts and India’s regulatory agencies. The ranking lists family fortunes, including those shared among extended families such as the Bajaj and Burman families. Public fortunes were calculated based on stock prices and exchange rates as of Sept. 19, 2025. Private companies were valued based on similar companies that are publicly traded. The list can also include foreign citizens with business, residential or other ties to the country, or citizens who don’t reside in the country but have significant business or other ties to the country. The editors reserve the right to amend any information or remove any listees in light of new information.