Mukesh Ambani joins $100 Billion Club among Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani joined the world’s most exclusive wealth club with a fortune of at least $100 billion. Asia’s richest person Mukesh Ambani has now entered the rarefied group of 11 men including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, and Larry Page after the stock of his conglomerate reached a record high on October 8, 2021. As per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Mukesh Ambani is now worth $100.6 billion, after his wealth increased by $23.8 billion in 2021.

In 2005, Mukesh Ambani, 64-years-old, inherited the oil-refining and petrochemicals businesses of his late father Dhirubhai Ambani. Since then, Mukesh Ambani has been working on transforming the energy business into retail, technology, and e-commerce titan.

In 2016, he began the telecommunications unit which is now a dominant carrier in the Indian market. The retail and technology ventures have also raised about $27 billion in 2020 after selling stakes to investors ranging from Google and Facebook to Silver Lake and KKR.

“Mukesh Ambani is at the forefront of creating new businesses with new emerging technologies. Creating businesses of scale at speed brings execution challenges but he has demonstrated his capabilities,” said Chakri Lokapriya, Chief Investment Officer at TCG Asset Management Co. in Mumbai.

Mukesh Ambani's Push towards Green Energy

In June 2021, with an investment of about $10 billion over three years, Mukesh Ambani announced an ambitious plan to push towards green energy. On September 3, 2021, he announced that his company is committing Rs 75,000 crore over the next 3 years to aggressively work towards producing cheaper green hydrogen. All these plans to push towards green energy by Mukesh Ambani are in alignment with PM Modi’s vision of turning India into a global manufacturing hub for cleaner fuel to cut energy imports by the world’s 3^rd biggest oil consumer and fight climate change.

Way forward – Reliance Industries

While many see that the Ambani Group should be looking beyond oil to strengthen its future, fossil fuel still plays a central role at Reliance accounting for approximately 60 per cent of its $73 billion in annual revenue. The oil-to-chemicals business is now a separate unit, and talks are underway to get Saudi Arabian Oil Co. as an investor.

Mukesh Ambani and Reliance’s oil-refining and petrochemicals businesses – Background

Back in the 1960s, Dhirubhai Ambani who began as a gas station attendant in Yemen started building his polyester business into a titan. However, in 2002, he died of a stroke. In the absence of a will, late Dhirubhai’s wife Kokilaben settled the feud with a truce agreement in 2005 wherein Mukesh Ambani got oil refining and petrochemicals businesses while his brother Anil Ambani got telecommunications, financial services, and power generation.

Here is a list of world’s richest people in the $100 billion club