Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani expected to receive Rubio at world's largest refinery

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani is expected to receive U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Reliance Industries Ltd.'s refining complex in Jamnagar next week, a stop that puts the oil-to-telecom conglomerate at the center of Washington's latest diplomatic push in India.

Sergio Gor, the U.S. ambassador to India, said on Thursday that Rubio would travel to Jamnagar, in the western state of Gujarat, to meet with "some of the folks" at Reliance. Asked whether Ambani, Reliance's chairman and managing director, would be present, Gor said he imagined he would be. "This trip is a little more business-focused," Gor told a business conference in New Delhi.

The State Department said on Tuesday that Rubio will travel from Oct. 17 to Oct. 22, starting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, before going on to Mumbai and Jamnagar. In India he will meet senior government officials to strengthen the U.S.-India strategic partnership and discuss "prospects for enhanced energy cooperation," the department said. He will also meet business leaders to promote commercial investment.

Gor said he expects External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to join meetings in Mumbai. The itinerary does not include New Delhi. It will be Rubio's second official visit to India this year, after he traveled to the country in May for a meeting of foreign ministers from the Quad, the grouping of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia.

Ambani's Texas refinery link

Jamnagar is Reliance's flagship asset. The complex can process 1.4 million barrels of crude a day, and the company describes it as the largest and most complex single-site refinery in the world.

The visit comes seven months after Trump announced that Reliance would back the first major new oil refinery built in the U.S. in about 50 years. America First Refining, the startup developing the plant at the Port of Brownsville, Texas, said it would process about 168,000 barrels a day of U.S. light shale crude into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. The company described its backer only as a global energy company that made a "nine-figure" investment. Reliance signed a binding 20-year offtake term sheet to buy the plant's output.

"We're also very proud because they're opening the first refinery in the United States in 50 years," Gor said on Thursday. He also said Reliance was well placed to sell diesel to the U.S. market.

In a post on Truth Social in March, Trump thanked "our partners in India, and their largest privately held Energy Company, Reliance," for the investment.

Musk's feud

Rubio's stop comes as Elon Musk, the world's richest person, has spent more than a week attacking Ambani on X over the delayed launch of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service in India. In one post, Musk mockingly addressed him as "Prime Minister Ambani" and accused Reliance, which owns India's largest mobile operator, Jio, of protecting its telecom business from competition.

India's Ministry of Communications has rejected Musk's claims of regulatory interference. It said Starlink and two other licensed satellite operators, including Jio's venture with Luxembourg-based SES, were at broadly the same stage of security assessment before spectrum is assigned. Reliance has not publicly responded to Musk.

The Jamnagar visit also follows a period of strain over India's purchases of discounted Russian oil. Trump administration officials last year criticized Indian refiners for buying Russian crude, and Reliance was widely seen as a target of those remarks, though it was not named.

Rubio's trip lands the same week that Jio Platforms Ltd., Reliance's telecom and digital arm, opens India's largest initial public offering. The share sale, which aims to raise about $3.1 billion, runs from Oct. 21 to Oct. 23, overlapping with the final days of Rubio's trip.

Ambani, 69, is one of Asia's richest people. He took over Reliance with his brother Anil after their father, Dhirubhai Ambani, died in 2002, and he has since built it into India's most valuable listed company, with businesses spanning refining, petrochemicals, retail and telecommunications.