Mukesh Ambani chairs and runs $125 billion (revenue) Reliance Industries, which has interests in petrochemicals, oil and gas, telecom, retail, media and financial services.
Reliance was founded by his late father Dhirubhai Ambani, a yarn trader, in 1966 as a small textile manufacturer. After his father's death in 2002, Ambani and his younger sibling Anil divvied up the family empire.
Reliance's telecom and broadband service Jio has over 500 million subscribers and Ambani has said he plans to list it in 2026. In 2023, Reliance listed its finance arm, Jio Financial Services.
Ambani has expanded Reliance into green energy. The company will be investing $80 billion over the next decade or so on renewable energy and building a new complex next to its refinery.
Ambani's three children joined the board of Reliance in 2023. Son Akash heads Jio; daughter Isha oversees retail and financial services; and younger son Anant is in the energy business.
Drop Out, Stanford University; Bachelor of Science in Engineering, University of Mumbai
Did you know
During the Covid-19 lockdown, Ambani raised more than $20 billion selling a third of Jio to a string of investors, such as Facebook and Google.
Reliance owns Network18, a licensee of Forbes Media.
Ambani's U.S.-educated daughter Isha's marriage to fellow billionaire Ajay Piramal's son in 2018 drew 10,000 guests, including Hillary Clinton.
Reliance Industries bought the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York for $98 million in 2022.
Ambani's son Anant's pre-wedding gala was held over three days in Jamnagar, Gujarat in March 2024 and had 1,600 guests, including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Ivanka Trump.
In Their Own Words
Anything and everything that can go digital is going digital. India cannot afford to be left behind.
Jio Platforms' IPO, which has been delayed amid geopolitical tensions, could reportedly raise about $3.8 billion and make it India's largest-ever maiden share sale.
Masayoshi Son has overtaken Indian mogul Mukesh Ambani as the richest person in Asia, as surging SoftBank shares led him to amass a fortune of $97 billion.
Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and Adar Poonawalla, son of vaccine billionaire Cyrus Poonawala, will join other high-profile Indian cricket team owners, including Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.
Billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla joins other high-profile owners of Indian Premier League cricket teams including Asia’s wealthiest, Mukesh Ambani, whose Reliance Industries owns the Mumbai Indians.
Reliance Industries—controlled by Asia's richest person, Mukesh Ambani—will supply green ammonia to Samsung C&T for 15 years starting in the second half of 2029, in a deal valued at $3 billion.
Mukesh Ambani and fellow Indian billionaire Gautam Adani have been stepping up data center investments in the world's most populous nation, tapping on the AI boom.
The buildout of AI infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific is in high gear. Masayoshi Son and Mukesh Ambani are among the region's wealthiest taking the lead.
India’s cola wars are bubbling over with the revival of homegrown brand Campa Cola by Reliance Consumer Products, a unit of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries.
The AI push will be spearheaded by a newly created unit Reliance Intelligence, which would develop AI infrastructure and build a gigawatt-scale data center in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
This is the second partnership between India's richest persons. In July 2024, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries bought a 26% stake in Mahan Energen, a unit of Adani Power for $5.8 million.
Reliance has been cutting its stake in Asian Paints amid softening demand and intensifying competition from new players such as billionaire Kumar Birla’s Birla Opus.
Reliance Industries plans to develop 500 such facilities across 500,000 acres of barren and waste land in Andhra Pradesh. The project will produce 4 million tons of compressed bio-gas and 1.1 million metric tons of organic fertiliser annually.
