Mukesh Ambani

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani (born 19 April 1957) is an Indian businessman and the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries. With an estimated net worth of $113.7 billion as of March 2024, he is the richest person in Asia and 11th richest in the world. Sometimes characterized as a plutocrat, he has attracted both fame and notoriety for reports of market manipulation, political corruption, cronyism, and exploitation.

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani was born on 19 April 1957 in the British Crown colony of Aden (present-day Yemen) into a Gujarati Hindu family to Dhirubhai Ambani and Kokilaben Ambani. He has a younger brother Anil Ambani and two sisters, Nina Bhadrashyam Kothari and Dipti Dattaraj Salgaonkar.

Ambani lived only briefly in Yemen because his father decided to move back to India in 1958 to start a trading business that focused on spices and textiles. The latter was originally named "Vimal" but later changed to "Only Vimal". His family lived in a modest two-bedroom apartment in Bhuleshwar, Mumbai until the 1970s. The family's financial status slightly improved when they moved to India but Ambani still lived in a communal society, used public transportation, and never received an allowance. Dhirubhai later purchased a 14-floor apartment block called 'Sea Wind' in Colaba, where, until recently, Ambani and his brother lived with their families on different floors.

Ambani attended the Hill Grange High School at Peddar Road, Mumbai, along with his brother and Anand Jain, who later became his close associate. After his secondary schooling, he studied at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. He then received a BE degree in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology.

Ambani later enrolled for an MBA at Stanford University but withdrew in 1980 to help his father build Reliance, which at the time was still a small but fast-growing enterprise. His father felt that real-life skills were harnessed through experiences and not by sitting in a classroom, so he called his son back to India from Stanford to take command of a yarn manufacturing project in his company.

Ambani has been quoted as saying that he was influenced by his teachers William F. Sharpe and Man Mohan Sharma because they are "the kind of professors who made you think out of the box."

In 1981, Ambani was pulled out of Stanford by his father Dhirubhai Ambani to help run their family business (Reliance Industries Limited). Mukesh Ambani set up Reliance Infocomm Limited (now Reliance Communications Limited), which was focused on information and communications technology initiatives. At the age of 24, Ambani was given charge of the construction of Patalganga petrochemical plant when the company was heavily investing in oil refinery and petrochemicals.

Ambani directed and led the creation of the world's largest grassroots petroleum refinery at Jamnagar, India, which could produce 660,000 barrels per day (33 million tonnes per year) in 2010, integrated with petrochemicals, power generation, port, and related infrastructure. In December 2013 Ambani announced the possibility of a "collaborative venture" with Bharti Airtel in setting up digital infrastructure for the 4G network in India. On 18 June 2014, Mukesh Ambani said he will invest Rs 1.8 trillion (short scale) across businesses in the next three years and launch 4G broadband services in 2015.

In February 2014, a First Information Report (FIR) alleging criminal offences was filed against Mukesh Ambani for alleged irregularities in the pricing of natural gas from the KG basin.

Ambani was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2016 for engineering and business leadership in oil refineries, petrochemical products, and related industries.

As of 2015, Ambani ranked fifth among India's philanthropists, according to China's Hurun Research Institute. He was appointed as a Director of Bank of America and became the first non-American to be on its board. As of 2016, Ambani was ranked as the 36th richest person in the world and has consistently held the title of India's richest person on Forbes magazine's list for the past ten years. He is the only Indian businessman on Forbes' list of the world's most powerful people. As of October 2020, Mukesh Ambani was ranked by Forbes as the 6th-wealthiest person in the world. He surpassed Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group, to become Asia's richest person with a net worth of $44.3 billion in July 2018. He is also the wealthiest person in the world outside North America and Europe.

As of February 2018, Bloomberg's "Robin Hood Index" estimated that Ambani's personal wealth was enough to fund the operations of the Indian federal government for 20 days.

Through Reliance, he also owns the Indian Premier League franchise Mumbai Indians and is the founder of the Indian Super League, a football league in India. In 2012, Forbes named him one of the richest sports owners in the world. He resides at the Antilia, one of the world's most expensive private residences with its value reaching $4.6 billion.

• Member of Board of Governors Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai
• Chairman, managing director, Chairman of Finance Committee and Member of Employees Stock Compensation Committee, Reliance Industries Limited
• Former chairman, Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited
• Former vice-chairman, Reliance Petroleum
• Chairman of the board, Reliance Petroleum
• Chairman and Chairman of Audit Committee, Reliance Retail Limited
• Chairman, Reliance Exploration and Production DMCC
• Former Director, Member of Credit Committee and Member of Compensation & Benefits Committee, Bank of America Corporation
• President, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat

For manipulating shares of Reliance Petroleum Limited (RPL), Reliance Industries was fined Rs. 950 crores (9.5 billion), split into 447 crores (4.47 billion) in retracted gains and 500 crores (5 billion) in interest in 2007. In April 2006, RPL went public as a Reliance subsidiary for Rs. 60 per share. The market crashed by 30% after it floated at roughly Rs. 100, and RPL was back at 60. By Securities and Exchange Board of India directive, RIL carried out an organised operation with the help of its agents to obtain unauthorised profits from the trading of its formerly listed unit, RPL, which was combined with the former in 2009.

He married Nita Ambani in 1985 and they have two sons, Akash and Anant, and a daughter, Isha, who is Akash's twin. They met after his father attended a dance performance which Nita took part in and thought of the idea of arranging a marriage between the two.

They live in Antilia, a private 27-storey building in Mumbai, which was valued at US$1 billion and was the most expensive private residence in the world at the time it was built. The building requires a staff of 600 for maintenance, and it includes three helipads, a 160-car garage, private movie theatre, swimming pool, and fitness centre.

In 2007, Ambani gifted his wife a $60 million Airbus A319 for her 44th birthday. The Airbus has been custom-fitted to include a living room, bedroom, satellite television, WiFi, sky bar, showers, and an office.

Ambani was titled "The World's Richest Sports Team Owner" after he purchased the IPL cricket team Mumbai Indians for $111.9 million in 2008.

Mukesh Ambani is a strict vegetarian and teetotaler.

During the fiscal year ending 31 March 2012, he reportedly decided to forgo nearly ₹240 million from his annual pay as chief of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). He elected to do this even as RIL's total remuneration packages to its top management personnel increased during that fiscal year. Mukesh Ambani holds a 50.4% stake in the company. This move kept his salary capped at ₹150 million for the fourth year in a row.

In early 2019, a court in Mumbai held his younger brother, Anil Ambani, in criminal contempt for non-payment of personally guaranteed debt Reliance Communications owed to Swedish gearmaker Ericsson. Instead of jail time, the court gave Anil a month to come up with the funds. At the end of the month, Mukesh bailed out his younger brother, paying the debt. In 2021, he was the subject of a bomb scare when a green Mahindra Scorpio SUV packed with explosives was found near a Mumbai skyscraper housing Ambani. In 2023, he received a death threat via email.