Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai are among the famous American technology entrepreneurs invited by Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest billionaire, to a pre-wedding party for his youngest son in India this weekend.

A series of technology, finance and media bosses around the world attended the three-day party organized by Mr. Mukesh Ambani. This not only highlights the global influence of Asia’s richest billionaire but also highlights India’s growing importance to foreign companies.

Owning 42% of the shares of multi-industry conglomerate Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani is currently the 11th richest billionaire in the world and the richest in Asia with a fortune of $111 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He will celebrate this weekend for his youngest son Anant Ambani (28) and his fiancée Radhika Merchant (29).

Radhika Merchan is the daughter of the famous family that runs Encore Healthcare, a major Indian pharmaceutical company. Radhika Merchan is currently a board member of Encore Healthcare.

While full details about Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant’s July wedding are yet to be announced, the three-day pre-wedding party in March will be extremely luxurious and will bring together many tech entrepreneurs.

The event will take place in a 3,000-acre garden (1 acre = 3,600 square meters) on the campus of an oil refinery in Jamnagar city (Gujarat state, India) – hometown of Mukesh Ambani’s family.

The garden has more than 10 million trees and is the largest mango garden in Asia. It’s also home to Mukesh Ambani’s animal rescue and rehabilitation center, which houses 2,000 animals rescued in India and around the world, including leopards, tigers, lions, jaguars and elephants.

Rumor has it that Rihanna has been chosen as the main singer to perform alongside famous magician David Blaine. The guest list includes many Indian billionaires and Bollywood stars, along with Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Ivanka Trump (Donald Trump’s daughter)…

Ivanka Trump arrives at Anant Ambani’s pre-wedding party in Jamnagar – Photo: AP

About 2,500 dishes are expected to be served to visitors over the three days to ensure they never have to eat the same dish twice.

Mukesh Ambani’s grasp of domestic trade makes him a valuable partner for Western companies trying to enter the Indian market.

Meta Platforms, Alphabet, Qualcomm and Intel have all invested in Jio Infocomm, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries, in recent years.

Leaders of major technology companies in the US want to create sympathy for Mukesh Ambani and Reliance Industries because they realize they can earn a lot of money from India. The South Asian country has long offered an abundant supply of cheap labor, quality tech talent and familiarity as an English-speaking democracy.

The prolonged shutdown of Chinese factories during the COVID-19 pandemic, the political and legal challenges of operating there, and the country’s economic difficulties have boosted many American companies. expanding its global footprint and becoming more dependent on India.

India is also in the midst of a technological and financial revolution. More and more Indians are using digital payments, online communications and e-commerce as their incomes increase.

“What I see in India is a lot of middle class people and I hope that Apple can convince some of them to buy iPhones. I really feel like India is at a turning point and it’s great to be there,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said during a company earnings call in May 2023.

By August 2023, Tim Cook noted that Apple had a “very modest” market share in India – the world’s second largest smartphone market, creating a “huge opportunity” for the company in this country.

This comment explains why Apple opened its first two stores in India last year and the company’s revenue from the country hit a new record in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Tim Cook at the opening ceremony of Apple’s first store in New Delhi, capital of India in April 2023 – Photo: Getty Images

During an earnings call in April, Ted Sarandos (Netflix co-CEO) praised India as a “huge prize” due to its “huge entertainment-loving population.”

Meta Platforms also praised India in its recent annual report, revealing that it was one of the company’s three biggest sources of growth in active users last year.

For Amazon, its India business attracted about 1 billion customers to its website during the month-long Great Indian Festival sales event in the fourth quarter of 2023, including 4 million real people. Make your first purchase on Amazon.

Microsoft sees India as the main driver for the growth of LinkedIn social network members. LinkedIn membership grew 19% to 100 million in India in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.

Profits, partnerships and parties

India is clearly an important growth driver for some of America’s largest companies, so it’s no surprise they want to get deeper into that market.

Mukesh Ambani’s son’s pre-wedding event offers an opportunity to forge close relationships with one of India’s most powerful men and his family, rub shoulders with industry leaders, discuss and reach Get local deals as well as enjoy one of the most luxurious parties this year. Therefore, it is not surprising that American business elites take the time to come here.

Portrait of Mukesh Ambani

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, was born on April 19, 1957. Mukesh Ambani’s father, Dhirubhai Ambani, was once one of Asia’s richest men, founding Reliance Industries in 1966.

Mukesh Ambani studied at St. Xavier in Mumbai and enrolled in an MBA at Stanford University (USA), but he dropped out of school to help his father build the company.

Mukesh Ambani started working at Reliance Industries in the 1980s. Initially he only managed the construction of the company’s fiber plant. But thanks to his talent, Mukesh Ambani was assigned by his father to build a petrochemical plant in the Patalganga area (India) as well as manage other factories of Reliance Industries.

In 2002, after his father passed away, Mukesh Ambani had a tense power struggle in the company with his younger brother Anil Ambani. This led to the Reliance Industries empire being split in half in 2005. Mukesh Ambani owned refining and petrochemical businesses, which grew slowly but were profitable. While Anil Ambani holds activities that appear to have more long-term potential – financial services, power generation and telecommunications.

Since inheriting, Mukesh Ambani has turned Reliance Industries into an international corporation, one of the world’s leading petrochemical companies. He directed the construction of India’s largest oil refinery in Jamnagar city, turning this place into one of the world’s oil refining centers.

Not only focusing on investing in petrochemicals, Mukesh Ambani also founded the Reliance Retail retail system in 2006 and the Reliance Jio Infocomm telecommunications group in 2016. Currently, these are both India’s largest companies in the world. retail and telecommunications sectors.

Reliance Jio Infocomm currently has about 450 million subscribers.

Since 2009, Mukesh Ambani has continuously maintained his position as one of the wealthiest men in Asia.

Mukesh Ambani is turning Reliance Industries into a green energy conglomerate. Reliance Industries will invest $80 billion over the next 10-15 years in renewable energy and build a new complex next to its refinery.

Mukesh Ambani has outlined his succession plan: Son Akash is now Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm; daughter Isha oversees retail and financial services; Youngest son Anant is in the new energy business.