Mukesh Ambani becomes world's fifth richest man

Mumbai: Mukesh Ambani, the chairperson of Reliance Industries Ltd, is now the world’s richest man after surging past Warren Buffet, according to Forbes.

The 63-year-old is now worth $74.6 billion, surpassing Berkshire Hathaway’s chief executive Buffett’s $72.7 billion as of Wednesday, according to the Forbes’ billionaires’ list.

Mukesh Ambani has seen a string of deals for his digital business and shares of his conglomerate have more than doubled since a low in March.

All this came after RIL’s Jio Platforms got more than $15 billion in investments from companies including Facebook Inc and Silver Lake.

And last week, Google agreed to buy a $4.5 billion stake in Jio Platforms Ltd, adding to a series of large US investments into an online venture that has nearly 400 million users in India.

The search engine will acquire 7.7% of the fast-growing internet unit for Rs 337.4 billion.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos leads the list with $185.8 billion, followed by Bill Gates of Microsoft with $113.1 billion of wealth.

Bernard Arnault and family, the chairperson and chief executive of luxury brand LVMH is the third on the list with a wealth of $111.8 billion. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is the fourth richest with a net worth of $89 billion.