The richest man in India approached Silicon Valley tech giant Elon Musk as well as Google founders Sergey Byrne and Larry Page, to become the sixth richest person in the world after American technology companies scrambled to invest in his company.
Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Google, an affiliate of Alphabet, is in advanced talks to invest $ 4 billion to buy a stake in the digital arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, India.
This comes a day after Google announced that it would spend about $ 10 billion in India over the next five to seven years through equity and relationship investments, in its largest investment in a major growth market outside the United States.
The research giant Facebook has invested $ 5.7 billion in the Indian company. The wave of financing, which started in late April, helped make Reliance the largest company in India in terms of net market value without debt.
The fortune of India's Reliance Industries Limited Mukesh Ambani, who last week exceeded Warren Buffett's, was $ 72.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Ambani's empire is slowly shifting from energy to e-commerce, as technology giants seek to take part in India's rapidly growing digital business. The second largest country in the world in terms of population witnessed a significant increase in foreign interest in its economy, especially from Silicon Valley.
After US technology shares fell on Monday, the fortune of Google founder Larry Page is now $ 71.6 billion, while his colleague Sergey Byrne has $ 69.6 billion, while Tesla's founder Musk has $ 68.6 billion. Warren Buffett's net worth fell last week to $ 70.9 billion after giving $ 2.9 billion to charities.