Ten richest of all Indian Americans have made it to the Forbes List 2018< The World’s Billionaires on March 6th. The richest Indian American on the list is Rakesh Gangwal, the co-founder of the airline Indigo and is worth $3.3 billion, after he made an extra $1.2 billion in the past year. Romesh T. Wadhwani, an IT entrepreneur and philanthropist, closely follows him, with a net worth of $3.1 billion, who ended up topping the list last year.
Forbes list this year has a record of 2,208 members including two new Indian Americans, Niraj Shah who is worth $1.6 billion and Jayshree Ullal who is worth $1.3 billion. Shah is the CEO and co-founder of Wayfair while Ullal is the CEO of Arista Networks.
Other Indian American billionaires who are on the list include Vinod Khosla ($2.3 billion), Google investor Kavitark Ram Shriram ($2.1 billion), Vista Equity Partners cofounder Brian Sheth ($2 billion), pharmaceutical executive John Kapoor ($1.8 billion), software executive and investor Aneel Bhusri ($1.6 billion) and Syntel co-founder Bharat Desai ($1.1 billion).
Sheth is the youngest Indian American billionaire on the list whose wealth went up by $900 million, while Khosla’s net worth increased by $700 million. The combined net worth of Indian American billionaires is $20.2 billion.
Pakistani American engineer and owner of the National Football League’s Jacksonville Jaguars Shahid Khan was the first South Asian American to appear on the billionaires’ list. Khan, 67, appeared at No. 217 on the list with a net worth of $7.2 billion. He bought auto parts supplier Flex-N-Gate in 1980. His design for a one-piece truck bumper was the basis for his success, Forbes said. The company now has 62 plants and more than 24,000 employees worldwide. Shahid Khan’s net worth in the current year is $7.2 billion.