Mukesh Ambani

Mukesh Ambani
Born	19 4 1957 (age 69 years old (as of 2026) ) India
Occupation	industrialist
Known for	Chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries
Spouse(s)	Nita Ambani
Education	University of Mumbai (BSc Engineering); Stanford University (did not complete)

Indian industrialist; chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries

Mukesh Ambani (born 19 April 1957) is an Indian industrialist, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries. The conglomerate's businesses include oil refining and petrochemicals, oil and gas, telecommunications through Jio, retail, media and financial services.^[1] On 20 October 2026 the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list ranked Mukesh Ambani 25th in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$82.96 billion; Forbes lists the source of wealth as Diversified.^[1]^[2] In the annual World's Billionaires list published in 2026, Forbes had ranked Mukesh Ambani 21st, at US$99.7 billion.^[3]

Early life and education

Forbes gives his date of birth as 19 April 1957. It lists a Bachelor of Science in engineering from the University of Mumbai, and records that he enrolled at Stanford University but did not complete the course.^[1] His father, Dhirubhai Ambani, was a yarn trader who founded Reliance in 1966 as a small textile manufacturer.^[1]

Business career

Forbes reports that after Dhirubhai Ambani's death in 2002, Mukesh and his younger brother Anil Ambani divided the family business between them.^[1] Forbes says Reliance Industries has about US$125 billion in annual revenue.^[1] In his statement in the company's 2024–25 annual report, Ambani gave consolidated revenue of ₹10,71,174 crore and net profit of ₹81,309 crore for the year.^[4]

During the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, Reliance sold stakes in its digital subsidiary Jio Platforms to a series of investors. On 19 June 2020 the company said Jio Platforms had raised ₹115,693.95 crore since 22 April from investors including Facebook, Silver Lake, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Together with a rights issue, Reliance said, this made it net debt-free.^[5] Forbes reports that Jio has more than 500 million subscribers and that Ambani has said he plans to list it in 2026; Reliance's finance arm, Jio Financial Services, was listed in 2023.^[1]

Forbes also reports that Reliance plans to invest about US$80 billion in renewable energy over roughly a decade. In 2026 Ambani announced a planned US$110 billion investment in AI infrastructure across India over seven years.^[1] Reliance owns Network18, which Forbes notes is a licensee of Forbes Media, and in 2022 it bought the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York for US$98 million.^[1]

Wealth

Forbes attributes his fortune to his controlling interest in Reliance Industries.^[1] His three children joined the Reliance board in 2023. According to Forbes, Akash Ambani heads Jio, Isha Ambani oversees retail and financial services, and Anant Ambani works in the energy business.^[1]

Wealth history

Forbes has included this entry in its annual World's Billionaires list in 24 of the editions from 2001 to 2026 checked for this profile, starting with 2003. The table gives the rank and estimated net worth in each annual list.^[3]^[1]

Forbes estimates by list year
Year	World's Billionaires rank	Net worth (US$ bn)
2003	123	2.8
2004	65	6.0
2005	60	7.0
2006	56	8.5
2007	14	20.1
2008	5	43.0
2009	7	19.5
2010	4	29.0
2011	9	27.0
2012	19	22.3
2013	22	21.5
2014	40	18.6
2015	39	21.0
2016	36	19.3
2017	33	23.2
2018	19	40.1
2019	13	50.0
2020	21	36.8
2021	10	84.5
2022	10	90.7
2023	9	83.4
2024	9	116.0
2025	18	92.5
2026	21	99.7

Philanthropy

The family's main philanthropic vehicle is the Reliance Foundation, founded and chaired by his wife, Nita Ambani. Reliance describes it as India's largest corporate philanthropic foundation and says its programmes in rural development, health, education, sport, disaster response, the arts and urban renewal have reached about 76 million people.^[6] Nita Ambani also founded and chairs the Dhirubhai Ambani International School, and chairs the Reliance Foundation Institution of Education and Research, which set up the Jio Institute.^[6]

Political activity

In March 2024, after India's Supreme Court struck down the electoral bond scheme, data published by the Election Commission of India showed that Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited was the country's third-largest buyer of electoral bonds, at ₹410 crore. The Indian Express reported that the directors of the companies that owned Qwik Supply were Reliance executives, and that the firm's registered email address was on Reliance's domain. A Reliance spokesperson said only that Qwik Supply was not a subsidiary of RIL.^[7] The Reporters' Collective reported that Qwik Supply gave ₹375 crore of its ₹410 crore to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ₹25 crore to the Shiv Sena and ₹10 crore to the Nationalist Congress Party. It also reported that Laxmidas Vallabhdas Merchant, a senior Reliance official, gave all of his electoral-bond donations to the BJP.^[8] These were donations by a company and an executive; the sources do not record any personal donation by Ambani himself.

Controversies and legal issues

In January 2021 the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) fined Reliance Industries ₹25 crore and Ambani personally ₹15 crore over alleged manipulative trading in shares of the former Reliance Petroleum in November 2007. Two other entities, Navi Mumbai SEZ and Mumbai SEZ, were fined ₹20 crore and ₹10 crore. On 4 December 2023 the Securities Appellate Tribunal set aside the penalties on Ambani and the two SEZ companies in an 87-page order and directed SEBI to refund any amounts deposited.^[9]

Family

Forbes notes that the 2018 wedding of his daughter Isha to a son of the industrialist Ajay Piramal had 10,000 guests, and that the pre-wedding celebrations for his son Anant, held over three days in Jamnagar in March 2024, had 1,600 guests.^[1]

International and political links

This section uses the same ten headings for every profile in this series. Only specific, sourced actions are included; company-level and foundation-level actions are labelled as such. Where nothing was found, the entry reads "No documented involvement found in sources checked."

Israel (investments, operations, donations, contracts, statements)

These are company-level actions. In October 2015 Globes reported that senior Reliance executives were in Israel looking for start-ups, mainly in telecoms, to invest in.^[10] In July 2017 Reliance Industries said in a stock-exchange filing that it would invest US$25 million in the Jerusalem Innovation Incubator, a partnership with OurCrowd, Motorola Solutions and Yissum, the technology-transfer arm of the Hebrew University, in which Reliance would hold 20%.^[11] A 2016 Globes report linking a US$10 billion defence venture with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to Mukesh Ambani was not used, because the ownership attribution could not be confirmed from a second source.