Lakshmi Niwas Mittal (Hindi: [ˈləkʃmi nɪˈʋaːsə ˈmɪtːələ] ; born 15 June 1950) is an Indian billionaire businessman and steel magnate. He is the executive chairman of ArcelorMittal, the world's second largest steelmaking company, as well as chairman of stainless steel manufacturer Aperam. Mittal owns 38 per cent of ArcelorMittal. He also holds a 75 percent stake in the Indian Premier League (IPL) team Rajasthan Royals. Mittal resides in Switzerland and United Arab Emirates following his departure from the United Kingdom in 2025, where he had lived since 1995. In 2005, Forbes ranked Mittal as the third-richest person in the world, making him the first Indian citizen to be ranked in the top ten in the publication's annual list of the world's richest people. He was ranked the sixth-richest person in the world by Forbes in 2011, but dropped to 82nd place in March 2015, and only to 130th by October 2024. He is also the "57th-most powerful person" of the 72 individuals named in Forbes' "Most Powerful People" list for 2015. His daughter Vanisha Mittal's wedding (in 2005) was the sixth-most expensive in recorded history. As of 2025, Mittal's net worth was estimated to be £15.444 billion by the Sunday Times Rich List. Mittal has been a member of the board of directors of Goldman Sachs since 2008. He sits on the World Steel Association's executive committee, and is a member of the Global CEO Council of the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the World Economic Forum's International Business Council, and the European Round Table of Industrialists. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Cleveland Clinic. In 2005, The Sunday Times named him "Business Person of 2006", the Financial Times named him "Person of the Year", and Time magazine named him "International Newsmaker of the Year 2006". In 2007, Time magazine included him in their "Time 100" list.
Early life and education Lakshmi Niwas Mittal was born on 15 June 1950, in Sadulpur, Rajasthan to a Marwari family. He studied at Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya, Calcutta from 1957 to 1964. He graduated from St. Xavier's College, affiliated to the University of Calcutta, with a B.Com degree in the first class. Lakshmi Niwas' father, Mohanlal Mittal, ran a steel business, Nippon Denro Ispat.
Career In 1976, because of the curb of steel production by the Indian government, the 26-year-old Mittal opened his first steel factory PT Ispat Indo in Sidoarjo, East Java, Indonesia. In 1989, Mittal purchased the state-owned steel works in Trinidad and Tobago, which were operating at an enormous loss. He turned them into profitable ventures in a year. Until the 1990s, the family's main assets in India were a cold-rolling mill for sheet steel in Nagpur and an alloy steel plant near Pune. Today, the family business, including a large integrated steel plant near Mumbai, is run by his younger brothers Pramod Mittal and Vinod Mittal, but Lakshmi has no connection with it. In 1995, Mittal purchased the Irish Steel plant based in Cork, Ireland, from the government for a nominal fee of IR£1. Only six years later in 2001 it was closed, leaving over 400 people redundant. Subsequent environmental issues at the site have been a cause for criticism. The Irish government sought a High Court judgement that Mittal's company should contribute to the cost of the clean-up of Cork Harbour, but failed. The clean up was expected to cost €70 million. Before December 2001, Mittal had acquired assets which he renamed Ispat Mexicana and his Kazakhstani operation Ispat Karmet. That month, he renamed Sidex Galati to Ispat Sidex, which he had acquired in November 2001. In October 2003, the LNM Group succeeded in concluding the $155 million transaction to pry loose the Romanian government from the control of steel assets Siderurgica Hunedoara and Petrotub Roman, the day after it took over the PHS Steel Group, which included Huta Sendzimira, Huta Katowice, Huta Florian, and Huta Cedler from the Polish government. Petrotub Roman was renamed Ispat Tepro in the sequel. Mittal successfully employed Marek Dochnal's consultancy to influence Polish officials in the 2003 privatisation of PHS steel group, which was then Poland's largest. Dochnal was later arrested for bribing Polish officials on behalf of Russian agents in a separate affair. Employees of Mittal have accused him of allowing "slave labour" conditions after multiple fatalities in his mines. For example, during December 2004, 23 miners died in explosions in his mines in Kazakhstan caused by faulty gas detectors. In 2006–07, Mittal succeeded in a hostile takeover bid for Arcelor, which he renamed Arcelor Mittal. In so doing, he obtained control of, amongst others, the Usinor steel assets of France, the Arbed steel assets of Luxembourg, and the Aceralia steel assets of Spain.
Controversies
Tony Blair lobbying scandal In 2002, Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price obtained a letter written by Tony Blair to the Romanian Government in support of Mittal's LNM Group steel company, which was in the process of bidding to buy Romania's state-owned industry. This revelation caused controversy, because Mittal had given £125,000 to the British Labour Party the previous year. Although Blair defended his letter as simply "celebrating the success" of a British company, he was criticised because LNM was registered in the Dutch Antilles and employed less than 1% of its workforce in the UK. LNM was a "major global competitor of Britain's own struggling steel industry". Blair's letter hinted that the privatisation of the firm and sale to Mittal might help smooth the way for Romania's entry into the European Union. It also had a passage, removed just before Blair's signing of it, describing Mittal as "a friend". In October 2003, the LNM Group succeeded in concluding the transaction to pry loose the Romanian government from the control of steel assets.
Social work
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