Indian tycoon to invest $10bn in US economy following Trump win

Indian tycoon Gautam Adani has announced plans to invest $10 billion into energy and infrastructure projects in the US that he claims will create 15,000 jobs.  

In a post on X, the chairman of Adani Group, one of India’s largest conglomerates with market capitalization of over $200 billion, congratulated US President-elect Donald Trump on his victory in the recent election, noting that “the partnership between India and the United States deepens.” 

“The Adani Group is committed to leveraging its global expertise and invest $10 billion in US energy security and resilient infrastructure projects, aiming to create up to 15,000 jobs,” he wrote, without providing any details of the projects or timeline.  

The Adani Group, founded by Gautam Adani in 1980s as a commodity trading business, has since diversified into various sectors, including conventional and renewable energy generation, ports and logistics, agribusiness, real estate, financial services, and defense. Adani is the second-richest individual in India and 18th globally, with a net worth of $86.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Adani’s announcement comes a day after the US oil and gas lobby group, the American Petroleum Institute, issued a policy roadmap for the incoming Trump administration. The group requests that several of President Joe Biden’s environment-related policies be rolled back, claiming they have threatened jobs and energy security. 

During his election campaign, Trump vowed to eradicate the Biden administration’s climate policies and dramatically increase US output of oil and gas, as he sees cheaper energy as the key to lowering grocery prices, housing costs, utility bills, and inflation. Trump said he wants to “terminate” spending on what is called the Green New Deal, presumably referring to the Biden administration’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, a major investment initiative in climate and energy.  

Adani Group, however, has been actively expanding its portfolio of renewable energy assets both in India and in other countries. The conglomerate’s renewable energy arm currently operates over 11.2 GW of wind, solar and hybrid projects and aims to expand this capacity to 50 GW by 2030. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that the group plans to build ten gigawatts of overseas hydroelectric projects over the next few years and is exploring projects in Nepal, Bhutan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Kenya, and Tanzania.  

The conglomerate found itself embroiled in a controversy that erupted in January 2023, when US-based short seller Hindenburg Research published a report claiming that Adani had engaged in stock market manipulation. The report triggered a plunge in the value of the group’s companies, knocking off $145 billion at the lowest point. Later, the investigative journalism platform Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and Western media outlets including Financial Times and The Guardian, published investigations claiming the Adani family had “secretly” invested “hundreds of millions of dollars” into the Indian stock market to buy its own shares. 

The Adani Group has denied all the allegations and linked them to “Soros-funded interests.” OCCRP, known for its work on the ‘Panama Papers’ and ‘Pandora Papers,’ lists foundations of the American investor-turned-philanthropist George Soros among its donors. It is also backed by the US State Department, UK Foreign Office, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Ford Foundation.