For years, two business titans have been locked in a battle for supremacy in India: Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani.
The two men dominate the headlines: They are both successful businessmen, but their stories are very different. And have a very different approach to business.
Gautam Adani is a self-made man who started with nothing and built a successful conglomerate. Mukesh Ambani, on the other hand, comes from a wealthy family and took over his father’s business.
Both hail from the western province of Gujarat, Modi’s home state.
For decades, the two of Asia’s wealthiest people avoided each other’s investment until lately, when they expanded into various overlapping sectors, triggering a complete clash.
Adani’s business was centered on industries such as ports, coal mining, and shipping, which Ambani avoided due to his own substantial investments in oil and telecommunication.
Again, Adani, 60, is a self-made businessman, whereas Ambani, 65, inherited Reliance from his father! But Adani appears to be eyeing the Ambani-dominated telecom sector.
Ambani, who is worth about $90 billion, was dethroned by Adani, who has experienced the world’s highest wealth growth this year to $118.3 billion, surpassing Bill Gates to become the world’s fourth wealthiest person.
Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. a major player in the telecom industry was considering buying a foreign telecommunications giant when word came that Gautam Adani, who had surpassed him as Asia’s richest man a few months earlier, was planning to bid on India’s first big sale of 5G airwaves.
Disappointing news, to say the least.
After peacefully flourishing in their separate domains for more than two decades, Asia’s two richest men are increasingly walking the same terrain, with Adani, in particular, broadening his goals beyond his typical regions of emphasis.
This is setting the scene for a showdown with far-reaching ramifications both outside and within India, as the $3.2 trillion economy embraces the digital era, sparking a rush for riches beyond the commodity-led sectors where Ambani and Adani gained their fortunes.
The two billionaires also have a lot in battle when it comes to green energy, with each promising to invest more than $70 billion in a sector that is closely related to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interests.
Meanwhile, Adani has begun to telegraph significant ambitions in areas like digital services, sports, retail, petrochemicals, and media. Ambani’s Reliance either already controls these industries or has ambitious intentions for them.
The two Indian billionaires are both ravenous for expansion, which means they’ll unavoidably collide, which is excellent for the country’s economy as long as they don’t harm each other and smaller enterprises rise.
Such an event could spark an economic boom similar to the Gilded Age in nineteenth-century America.
Rapid diversification and overlaps between them might result in a duopoly if they collaborate, as evidenced in the rise of American billionaire dynasties such as the Carnegies, Vanderbilts, and Rockefellers.
