Mukesh Ambani was born as Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani on April 19, 1957, in Aden (present-day Yemen) to Dhirubhai Ambani and Kokilaben Ambani. He has a younger brother Anil Ambani and two sisters-- Nina Bhadrashyam Kothari and Dipti Dattaraj Salgaocar.
Mukesh Ambani spent a year in Yemen and in 1958, Dhirubhai Ambani moved back to India to start spices and textiles trading business.
Until the 1970s, Mukesh Ambani lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Mumbai's Bhuleshwar. After a few years, when the financial condition of the family improved, Mukesh Ambani's father bought a 14-floor apartment block called 'Sea Wind' in Colaba.
Mukesh Ambani: Career
In the year 1981, after returning to India, Mukesh Ambani helped his father to build Reliance Industries Limited. The family business by this time expanded to refining, petrochemicals, retail and telecommunications industries. Its subsidiary, Reliance Retail Ltd. is the largest retailer in India. Mukesh Ambani also owns the IPL team Mumbai Indians and is the owner of Indian Super League, a football league in India.
In the year 1980, India under Indira Gandhi leadership opened the doors of PFY (polyester filament yarn) manufacturing plant to the private sector. Dhirubhai Ambani applied for the license to set up a PFY plant and faced stiff competition with Tatas, Birlas and more. Despite the competition, Dhirubhai received the 'License Raj'. In 1980, he called back Mukesh Ambani to help him build his business. Rasikbhai Meswani was the then director of the company and Mukesh Ambani reported to him daily.
The company was laid on the principle that everyone must contribute to the business and not the selected individuals. In 1985, Rasikbhai died and the next year in 1986, Mukesh Ambani's father suffered a stroke. It was at this time that all the responsibility was shifted to Mukesh Ambani being the eldest son of the family. At the age of 24 years, Ambani was given charge of the construction of Patalganga petrochemical plant.
On July 6, 2002, Mukesh's father died suffering a second stroke. This elevated tensions between the brothers as Dhirubhai didn't leave any will for the distribution of the empire. Their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, solved the dispute by splitting the company into two. Mukesh Ambani received Reliance Industries Limited and Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited.
Under Mukesh Ambani's guidance, the company built the world's largest grassroots petroleum refinery at Jamnagar, India and can produce 660,000 barrels per day in the year 2010.
In December 2013, Mukesh Ambani announced a collaborative venture with Bharti Airtel to set up a digital infrastructure for the 4G network in India. On June 18, 2014, he announced an investment of Rs 1.8 trillion across businesses in the next three years and launched 4G broadband services on December 27, 2015, internally.
In 2016, Jio launched its own 4G smartphone under the brand named 'LYF'. The smartphone was India's third-largest selling smartphone that year. In September that year, Jio 4G was launched commercially.