Mukesh Ambani’s $2 chutzpah unlocks another fortune for Reliance Industries

Mukesh Ambani has joined the league of world’s richest with the help of a simple formula: assembling admirers for $2 businesses. First he got Facebook Inc. and Google to back his fledgling digital ambitions, and now he may be trying to entice Amazon.com Inc. into his retail venture, already India’s largest.

In four years, the Indian billionaire has amassed roughly 400 million customers for his mobile data business. What does Ambani eke out from each of them? Less than $2 a month. The chump change didn’t deter Facebook and Google’s parent, Alphabet Inc. Together with marquee private equity investors and sovereign wealth funds, Silicon Valley tech titans made a beeline recently to invest in Ambani’s Jio Platforms Ltd., valuing it at about $65 billion.