Forbes included 27 Indian-origin entrepreneurs, executives and public figures in its list of America’s 250 most successful living immigrants.
The list was released ahead of the US’ 250th Independence anniversary.
Arnold Schwarzenegger topped the overall ranking, followed by Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Rupert Murdoch.
As many as 27 Indian-origin leaders featured in Forbes’ list of America’s 250 most successful living immigrants, released on Wednesday ahead of the United States marking 250 years of Independence on July 4 this year.
The list highlights the growing influence of Indian-origin entrepreneurs, executives and public figures in shaping corporate America and comes at a time when immigration remains at the centre of political debate in the US. Since returning to office in 2025, US President Donald Trump’s administration has introduced tighter vetting measures, increased deportations and expanded immigration enforcement.
At the top of the overall ranking was Austria-born billionaire, investor, actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, followed by South African-born technology entrepreneur Elon Musk in second place and Russia-born Google co-founder Sergey Brin in third.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, originally from Taiwan, ranked fourth, while Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Fox News, completed the top five.
The list has also drawn criticism over gender representation. AMD chief executive Lisa Su, ranked eighth, was the only woman in the top 10. However, the broader ranking included at least four women of Indian origin.
First Lady Melania Trump, who was born in Slovenia, was also featured among the country’s most successful immigrants.
The 27 Indian-origin names on the list inclue:
Vinod Khosla – Venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems.
Naval Ravikant – Entrepreneur, angel investor and founder of AngelList.
Hemant Taneja – Venture capitalist and chief executive of General Catalyst.
Sanjay Mehrotra – President and CEO of Micron Technology.
Sundar Pichai – CEO of Alphabet and Google.
Abhijit Banerjee – Economist and Nobel Prize-winning academic.
Padma Lakshmi – Author, television host and entrepreneur.
Satya Nadella – Chairman and CEO of Microsoft.
Bharat Desai – Co-founder and chairman of IT services firm Syntel.
Neerja Sethi – Entrepreneur and co-founder of Syntel.
Jay Chaudhry – Founder and CEO of cybersecurity company Zscaler.
Romesh T. Wadhwani – Technology entrepreneur and founder of SymphonyAI.
Jyoti Bansal – Founder of AppDynamics and entrepreneur in cloud software.
Neha Narkhede – Co-founder of Confluent and technology entrepreneur.
David Paul – Investor and co-founder of private equity firm Globespan Capital Partners.
Jitendra Mohan – Technology executive and entrepreneur.
Arvind Krishna – Chairman and CEO of IBM.
Shantanu Narayen – Chairman and CEO of Adobe.
Premal Shah – Co-founder and president of impact investment platform Kiva.
Rakesh Gangwal – Airline executive and co-founder of IndiGo.
Indra Nooyi – Former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo.
Nikesh Arora – Chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks.
K.R. Sridhar – Founder and CEO of clean energy company Bloom Energy.
Aman Narang – Co-founder of enterprise software company Toast.
Anu Hariharan – Venture capitalist and technology investor.
Jayshree Ullal – President and CEO of networking company Arista Networks.
Shyam Shankar – Chief technology officer of Palantir Technologies.
