A near-12% jump in Reliance shares pushes Mukesh Ambani past ByteDance’s Zhang Yiming on Forbes’ real-time rankings
Mukesh Ambani is back at the top of Asia’s wealth table, at least according to one major tracker.
The overtake
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani overtook ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming to become Asia’s richest person on Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires list on Tuesday. His wealth rose 10.5% to $88.8 billion after a sharp rally in Reliance Industries shares. Reliance shares jumped nearly 12% in a single day, which is what moved the needle.
How the order flipped in the first place
Ambani had been displaced earlier this year. In June, Bloomberg reported that Zhang’s net worth had climbed to about $92.8 billion, making him China’s richest person and pushing Ambani down to about $86.9 billion. The rise came as ByteDance’s valuation grew and its artificial intelligence ambitions progressed.
So this is a story of two moving parts: ByteDance’s valuation lifted Zhang in June, and a single-day Reliance rally lifted Ambani in November.
A caveat on “Asia’s richest”
Billionaire rankings differ between trackers, and they change daily with share prices. In June, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index had Gautam Adani as the region’s wealthiest at about $117.4 billion. The Forbes-based headline about Ambani therefore shouldn’t be read as the verdict of every index. I haven’t found a current Bloomberg reading, so the comparison with Adani is unconfirmed for today.
Why the rally happened
The excerpts I could access don’t spell out the trigger for the Reliance surge, so I’m not attributing it to any specific event. Reliance’s latest quarterly results and Jio Platforms’ listing plans were tagged in coverage of the story, but the link between them and the share jump should be verified before it goes into any published piece.
What to watch next
- Whether Reliance holds its gains, since a single-day move can reverse just as fast.
- How Bloomberg’s index ranks Ambani, Adani and Zhang in the coming days.
- ByteDance’s valuation trajectory, which drives Zhang’s position.
Note: Net worth figures are real-time estimates from Forbes and move with market prices, so the ranking may already have shifted by the time you publish.
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