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By: Lieba Nesis
66-year-old Billionaire Mukesh Ambani and his wife Nita spent over $150 million for the pre-wedding of the century in their house in Jamnagar India. First gaining recognition with their $100 million Beyonce attended 2018 wedding the Ambani’s outdid themselves in 2024. Unsurprisingly, this ostentatious family lives in a 27-story skyscraper in Mumbai named Antilia which cost $2 billion to construct and contains three helipads, a 168-car-garage, nine elevators,a movie theatre, swimming pool fitness center and four floors reserved for plants.
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The rich love fraternizing with each other as the three day affair brought tech moguls Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, Bill Gates and Paula Hurd, Hillary Clinton and Ivanka and Jared Kushner along with daughter Arabella to the over-the-top extravaganza which took place on a 750-acre compound called Reliance Greens. Food costing over $25 million was prepared by more than 100 chefs which included 2,500 different meal options for the 1200 guests. The invitation read guests will start each day with a new dress code with mood boards and an army of hair stylists, makeup artists and Indian wear designers at their hotel.
The only caveat being a limit of three suitcases per couple. Guests were treated to chartered planes and a lackluster two hour $6.3 million Rihanna performance as dozens of tech moguls including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Disney CEO Bob Iger, CEO of BlackRock Larry Fink and Samsung executive Jay Y. Lee along with Bollywood celebrities Shah Rukh Khan, Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone and journalist Fareed Zakaria looked on ensuring this event became global tabloid fodder. Prime Minister of Qatar Jassim al Thani, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar also attended.
Considering 60% of India’s nearly 1.3 billion people live on less than $3.10 a day there is something definitively distasteful about Mark Zuckerberg admiring 28-year-old groom Anant Ambani’s $2.2 million Richard Mille white sapphire watch. There were some relatable moments as when the corpulent Anant brought his father to tears as he spoke movingly about his health challenges acknowledging how lucky he was to be marrying professional dancer Radhika Merchant in July-which will undoubtedly be the wedding of the century. The 29-year-old Radhika, who wore custom Versace, graduated from New York University and is the daughter of billionaire tycoon Viren A. Merchant-so to say this is a merger is an understatement.
However, the Ambani’s wealth is unsurpassed as the owners of Reliance Industries Limited making them the richest people in Asia and with a net worth of $117.8 billion the 9th richest people in the world. Dhirubhai Ambani began Reliance in 1958 taking the company public in 1977 while shockingly dying in 2002 without a will leaving his sons Mukesh and Anil in a contentious succession battle. Their mother negotiated a deal that had Anil taking over construction, telecommunications, asset management, entertainment and power generation businesses while older brother Mukesh inherited the far more lucrative oil, gas, petrochemicals and refining operations of the business.
Anil has only a tiny fraction of his brother’s wealth and declared bankruptcy as recently as 2020 despite Reliance Industries net worth of $240 billion. It is highly perplexing that the normally under the radar Ambani’s would go to such great lengths to showcase their wealth becoming an object of derision and jealousy and heightening security concerns. However, the extravaganza has put India on the map in a fashion heretofore unimaginable as the public excitedly anticipates the July nuptials.
