Mukesh Ambani enters the elusive $100bn club alongside Bezos, Musk
Asia's richest person Mukesh Ambani has entered the world's most elite wealth club with a fortune of at least $100 billion, joining the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. The chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. achieved the feat after his conglomerate's stock touched a record high on Friday, taking his net worth to $100.6 billion. Here's more on this.
Others on the list include Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, followed by Amazon founder Bezos who is worth $191 billion. He is followed by Bernard Arnault, Bill Gates, Google co-founder Larry Page, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The list also features Sergey Brin of Google, Oracle Corporation's executive chairman Larry Ellison, Steve Ballmer, and investor Warren Buffett.
Ambani had inherited his father Dhirubhai Ambani's business empire in 2005. He has since sought to transform the oil-refining and petrochemicals business into a retail and technology giant. His wealth increased by $23.8 billion just this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He has now become the 11th person across the globe to enter the coveted $100 billion club.
Ambani's telecommunications unit, Jio Platforms, which was launched in 2016, has already become the dominant service provider in the Indian market. The retail and technology venture had raised about $27 billion last year by selling stakes to major global investors including the likes of Facebook Inc., Google, KKR & Co., and Silver Lake, among others.
Ambani has also unveiled an ambitious plan to enter green energy sector with a planned investment of about $10 billion over three years. However, oil production still plays a major role at Reliance, accounting for nearly 60% of its annual revenue. Earlier, he had retained his top spot in the 2021 Forbes list of 100 richest Indians for the 14th year in a row.
Separately, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. has inked a deal to open several 7-Eleven convenience stores in India. The news came just days after Future Retail Ltd. dropped its franchise agreement with the US-based retailer. The first 7-Eleven store will be opened in Andheri East, Mumbai.
