Rajiv Bajaj is the Managing Director and CEO of Bajaj Auto, a post he has held since 1 April 2005. He is the elder son of the late Rahul Bajaj and the great-grandson of Jamnalal Bajaj, the founder of the Bajaj Group.

What is Rajiv Bajaj's net worth?

No major rich list publishes a separate figure for Rajiv Bajaj; his wealth is held through Bajaj family holding companies. Forbes valued the Bajaj family at US$19.8 billion (No. 12 in India) on 30 September 2026, and the Hurun India Rich List 2025 put 'Niraj Bajaj & family' at Rs 2,32,680 crore.

What is Rajiv Bajaj's education?

He earned a Bachelor of Engineering in mechanical engineering from the University of Pune in 1988, first in his class with distinction, and then a master's degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from the University of Warwick in the UK. He has no MBA.

How did Rajiv Bajaj transform Bajaj Auto?

He joined in 1990 and spent 15 years in manufacturing, R&D and marketing before becoming MD. He pushed the scooter maker into motorcycles with the Pulsar in 2001, ended scooter production around 2009, built exports, and bought into KTM, which Bajaj Auto took control of in November 2025.

What was the Rajiv Bajaj controversy?

He has drawn political criticism for his public remarks, including calling India's 2020 lockdown draconian in a conversation with Rahul Gandhi, pulling Bajaj ads from three news channels he called toxic in October 2020, and criticising Maharashtra's EV subsidy payments in 2026. None of these led to any legal finding against him.

Who will succeed Rajiv Bajaj at Bajaj Auto?

No successor has been named. Rajiv was reappointed MD and CEO until 31 March 2030, Rakesh Sharma became Joint MD from 1 June 2026, and Rajiv's son Rishab Bajaj works in Bajaj Auto's electric-vehicle business.

Where is Rajiv Bajaj from?

He grew up in the Bajaj Auto factory colony at Akurdi in Pune, Maharashtra. The family's roots go back to Sikar in Rajasthan and Wardha in Maharashtra, where his great-grandfather Jamnalal Bajaj grew up.

Rajiv Bajaj: Bajaj Auto MD's Life Story

Key facts
Born	21 December 1966 [1]
Hometown/Family roots	Grew up in Akurdi, Pune; family roots in Sikar (Rajasthan) and Wardha (Maharashtra)
Education	BE (Mechanical), University of Pune, 1988; MSc, Manufacturing Systems Engineering, University of Warwick [1] [12]
Family	Father Rahul Bajaj (1938-2022); brother Sanjiv Bajaj (Bajaj Finserv); wife Deepa; son Rishab
Company/Group	Managing Director & CEO, Bajaj Auto (since April 2005); Bajaj Group
Wealth	No separate figure published. Bajaj family: US$19.8 billion, No. 12 on Forbes India’s 100 Richest, 30 Sep 2026 [53]
Known for	The Pulsar, the exit from scooters, taking Bajaj global, the KTM takeover, Chetak electric, the CNG motorcycle, outspoken views

In 1979 a strike at Bajaj Auto’s Akurdi factory in Pune turned violent. The boss’s 12-year-old son lived inside the factory colony and heard it all. Years later Rajiv Bajaj remembered his mother telling him to “close your eyes and listen to that inner voice, your conscience.” [20]

The colony shaped the man. Rahul Bajaj chose to live beside his plant instead of in a south Mumbai mansion. His children went to the same convent school as the children of Bajaj staff. Rajiv later described what it gave them as “meritocracy, not aristocracy.” [90]

That boy went on to run the company for more than two decades. He took a slow, government-protected scooter maker, best known for the waiting list for its Chetak, and turned it into one of the world’s most valuable two-wheeler companies [41]. He did it largely against his father’s instincts. Along the way he fought a bitter patent war, faced down a 50-day strike, picked public quarrels with governments, and in 2025 bought control of KTM, a famous Austrian motorcycle brand, out of insolvency.

This is the story of how he did it, what it cost, and what is still unresolved.

Where it began

Rajiv Bajaj was born on 21 December 1966 [1]. He was the elder son of Rahul Bajaj and Rupa Bajaj, and four generations of Indian business history stood behind him.

His great-grandfather Jamnalal Bajaj was a Marwari boy from Sikar. A wealthy Wardha trader adopted him, and he became Mahatma Gandhi’s close associate and the Congress party’s treasurer. His grandfather Kamalnayan Bajaj ran the group after Jamnalal died in 1942. His father Rahul Bajaj built Bajaj Auto into India’s scooter king during the Licence Raj.

The home Rajiv grew up in was less grand than that lineage suggests. “I remember growing up right here, in Akurdi… It was a simple life,” he told Outlook Business in 2021 [20]. His mother came from a middle-class Maharashtrian family. She insisted that her children, Rajiv, Sanjiv and Sunaina, study at the school run by the Sisters of St. Ursula in the factory colony [20]. Rajiv recalled that the nuns would bathe the poorer children before class began [20].

An engineer, not an MBA

Rajiv took the engineering route. He earned a Bachelor of Engineering in mechanical engineering from the University of Pune in 1988, first in his class with distinction [1] [12]. He then went to the University of Warwick in England for a master’s degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering, which he also finished with distinction. The company’s 2020 filing gives the year as 1991, and the Bajaj Group’s own profile gives 1990 [1] [12]. Business Today reported that he joined Bajaj Auto on 19 December 1990, the day after he returned from Warwick, which supports 1990 [22].

That choice set him apart in his family. His father had a Harvard MBA, and so did his younger brother Sanjiv. “I am the only one in my family who hasn’t gone to a business school,” Rajiv has said, with evident pride [90]. In his telling, a family adviser warned his father that if Rajiv went to Harvard there would be no company left by the time he came back [21].

Before joining the family firm he spent time as an intern at Telco, now Tata Motors [27]. Loughborough University later gave him an honorary doctorate of technology, in 2022 [91].

The first break

Fifteen years of apprenticeship

Rajiv did not walk into a corner office. “During the first five years, I was working at the junior-most level as an engineer,” he said [20]. His father put him through three five-year rotations: manufacturing and supply chain (1990-95), R&D and engineering (1995-2000), and marketing and sales (2000-05) [1] [12].

He started on the shop floor at Akurdi. He says he raised output on one scooter assembly line from 128 to 210 vehicles a shift [21]. He learned how cost, quality and labour actually work, and that hands-on grounding shows in almost everything he has said since.

A company losing its way

The Bajaj Auto he joined was in trouble, though few outsiders could see it. It was still a scooter company. Through the 1980s it had missed both the shift to gearless scooters and the arrival of fuel-efficient 100cc motorcycles, which the Japanese joint ventures, above all Hero Honda (built with Brijmohan Lall Munjal’s Hero group), rode to dominance [21] [22].

Bajaj did have a technical tie-up with Kawasaki from 1986, which gave it the KB100 and later the Boxer [22]. But many of its early motorcycles failed. Business Today later reported that Bajaj’s warranty costs ran at about Rs 800 a bike, against roughly Rs 150 at Hero Honda. Rajiv called the situation “fundamentally rotten.” [22] By 2000, the two-wheeler business was barely making money and the shares traded around Rs 200 [22].

The Japanese teacher

The young engineer’s most important mentor was not his father. It was a Japanese consultant in Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) whom Rajiv calls Yamaguchi San. He worked with Bajaj from 1996 to 2016 [21]. One of his lines became a Bajaj mantra: “Business starts when the customer says no.” [25]

Rajiv applied the lessons with force. Business Standard reported that in 1997 he shut the Aurangabad plant to shock the organisation into change, and that the company cut its component suppliers from more than 1,000 to about 200 [25]. Workforce numbers at the older plants fell sharply. The new Chakan plant near Pune, opened in the late 1990s, was staffed mainly by young engineers and diploma holders [22].

The Pulsar

The real break came on two wheels. In October 1998 a small R&D team began work [22] on a motorcycle that would not try to beat Hero Honda at its own game of fuel economy. “We realized that you cannot replace a Splendor with a better Splendor,” Rajiv said later [26].

The Pulsar 150 and 180 were launched from Chakan at the end of November 2001, with a “Definitely Male” campaign aimed at young men who wanted power and style [28]. The launch was not smooth. Rajiv himself later called it one of the worst in the company’s history, and the warranty had to be extended [26]. But the bike sold. Bajaj’s marketing chief had thought 5,000 a month would be an excellent result, and the Pulsar passed that within months [27]. In about four years Bajaj sold roughly 8 lakh of them [22].

Later versions of the Pulsar introduced the company’s DTS-i twin-spark ignition technology, which Bajaj then spread to the Discover and other models [2]. In Rajiv’s view the brand mattered more than the hardware. “For our rivals, the brand name is the name of the product. In our case, it is the name of the category,” he said [28].

The titles followed the results. He became President in May 2000, joined the board on 5 March 2002, and became Joint Managing Director in March 2003 [23] [12]. In March 2005 the board named him Managing Director from 1 April 2005. Rahul Bajaj stayed on as Chairman, and Sanjiv took charge of finance and international business [24] [2].

In FY2004-05, Rajiv’s first year in charge, Bajaj sold 18.2 lakh vehicles, 14.5 lakh of them motorcycles. That gave it a 27.8% share of the Indian motorcycle market. Net turnover was Rs 6,335 crore and net profit Rs 767 crore [2].

Building the empire

Specialise, even if it hurts

The idea that runs through Rajiv’s 20-plus years as MD fits in one sentence: “Business is strategy, strategy is specialisation, specialisation is sacrifice.” [31] He took it from the positioning books of the American marketers Al Ries and Jack Trout. He has also said that “all successful businesses start with one sharp positioning.” [26]

Applying it meant giving things up. The biggest sacrifice was the scooter, the product that had made the Bajaj name. In December 2009 Bajaj Auto said it would stop making scooters by the end of that financial year [30]. Rahul Bajaj spoke publicly about his unhappiness. “I feel bad, I feel hurt,” he told reporters. “But I am still not convinced. He (Rajiv) has tried to explain it to me.” [29]

Rajiv did not budge. “We are a motorcycle company and we will remain focused on motorcycles,” he said in 2011. “We did not phase out, but people stopped buying scooters.” [30] The decision looked costly as Honda’s Activa turned gearless scooters into a giant segment. Rajiv would come back to scooters only in 2019, and only as electric ones.

He applied the same discipline to marketing. “The narrower a brand, the deeper it runs,” he said in 2012, adding: “I have never tried to buy market share.” [32] In 2015 he noted that, apart from one print campaign, Bajaj had never advertised the Pulsar 150 in its 14 years on sale [33].

The demerger

In 2007-08 the Bajaj group was restructured. The board approved a scheme in May 2007 that split the old Bajaj Auto Ltd into three listed companies [34]:

Bajaj Auto, holding the vehicle business, with Rajiv as MD;
Bajaj Finserv, holding the insurance and consumer-finance businesses, run by Sanjiv;
Bajaj Holdings & Investment, the old company renamed, holding investments.

Shareholders got one share of the new Bajaj Auto and one of Bajaj Finserv for each old share. The stated aim was to let investors “hold separate focused stocks.” [34] The new shares listed in May 2008. For the brothers it was also a clean division of labour that has held ever since. Rajiv makes vehicles; Sanjiv runs finance.

Going global with KTM

Rajiv’s second big bet was overseas. In November 2007 Bajaj bought a 14.5% stake in KTM Power Sports, the Austrian maker of off-road and performance motorcycles, for about Rs 300 crore [35]. It was a small, unfashionable deal at the time, an Indian commuter-bike maker buying into a niche European brand.

Bajaj kept buying. By 2012 it held about 47%, but Rajiv deliberately stayed a minority owner, partly to protect KTM’s image of exclusivity [36]. Bajaj began building KTM’s smaller Duke and RC models at Chakan from 2012 for India and for export. By 2018 KTM had become what Business Standard called a “cash cow”: Bajaj had invested Rs 1,219 crore and earned Rs 365 crore in dividends over eight years, and Chakan built 98,132 KTMs in FY2018 alone [36]. The one millionth KTM rolled out of Chakan in January 2023 [37].

In September 2021 the stake was restructured. Bajaj swapped its 46.5% of KTM AG for 49.9% of a holding company, later called Pierer Bajaj AG, which sat above Stefan Pierer’s listed Pierer Mobility [7].

Triumph and premium bikes

In August 2017 Bajaj signed a non-equity partnership with Britain’s Triumph Motorcycles to build mid-sized bikes [38]. It took six years to bear fruit. The Triumph Speed 400 and Scrambler 400X were launched in Pune on 5 July 2023, built at Chakan, with the Speed 400 priced at Rs 2.23 lakh for the first 10,000 buyers [8]. In FY2025-26 Bajaj sold more than 1.3 lakh KTM and Triumph bikes in India, and the two brands’ global revenue for Bajaj was about Rs 5,000 crore [5].

Exports: India’s motorcycle exporter

While rivals fought over Indian commuters, Rajiv sold bikes to the world. In FY2004-05 exports were 1.97 lakh vehicles, worth Rs 719 crore, about 12% of sales [2]. By FY2025-26 Bajaj exported 22.5 lakh vehicles, about 44% of its volume, with Latin America, Africa and Asia as key markets [6] [19]. In June 2024 it opened its first plant in Brazil, at Manaus [39].

He has always defined “global” his own way. “Being global means having one’s front end in all relevant global markets, not the back end,” he told Knowledge at Wharton in 2011 [40].

On 1 January 2021, Bajaj Auto became the first two-wheeler maker in the world to cross Rs 1 lakh crore in market value [41]. It passed Rs 2 lakh crore in January 2024 [42].

Three-wheelers and the Qute

The less glamorous side of the business has been just as important. Bajaj is the dominant maker of India’s autorickshaws. In FY2025-26 it held 73.8% of the domestic petrol, diesel and CNG three-wheeler market and was the leader in electric passenger three-wheelers as well [5].

Not every three-wheeled idea went smoothly. Bajaj unveiled the Qute, a small four-wheeled “quadricycle”, in January 2012. A public interest case and then Supreme Court proceedings over its safety held up its launch in India for years. The court disposed of the matter in February 2018 [18], and the government approved quadricycles later that year. Rajiv was openly frustrated by the wait. In 2017 he warned that if innovation depended on government approval, “it will not be a case of ‘Made in India’, but ‘Mad in India’.” [43]

Back to the Chetak, as an electric

On 16 October 2019, ten years after quitting scooters, Bajaj revived its most famous name. It unveiled the Chetak as an electric scooter [44]. “We are engineers who do our own work,” Rajiv said at the launch [44].

The Chetak started slowly but grew into a market leader. Bajaj’s EV arm, first set up as Chetak Technology Ltd, was renamed Bajaj Auto Technology Ltd in November 2024 [3]. In FY2025-26 the Chetak held 20.7% of India’s electric two-wheeler market, and Bajaj’s EV revenue across scooters and three-wheelers passed Rs 8,000 crore [5]. By the July-September 2026 quarter, electric vehicles made up about a third of Bajaj’s domestic revenue [45].

The world’s first CNG motorcycle

On 5 July 2024 Bajaj launched the Freedom 125, which it called the world’s first CNG motorcycle. It carries a 2 kg CNG tank and a 2-litre petrol tank and was priced from Rs 95,000 [11]. Rajiv said the bike “can halve the running costs” for commuters [47]. It was a typical Rajiv product: a different idea rather than a better version of what rivals already sold. As he put it in 2024, “people don’t buy better. People buy different.” [49]

Taking control of KTM

The biggest deal of his career came out of a crisis, which is covered in the next section. By November 2025 Bajaj Auto had become the controlling owner of KTM. Its holding company owned 74.9% of the listed parent, renamed Bajaj Mobility AG, which owns all of KTM [14] [5].

The numbers today

Under Rajiv, Bajaj Auto has grown from a domestic scooter maker into a profitable global business:

	FY2004-05	FY2025-26
Vehicles sold	18.2 lakh	51.2 lakh
Revenue	Rs 6,335 crore (net turnover)	Rs 58,732 crore (revenue from operations)
Net profit	Rs 767 crore	Rs 9,825 crore (standalone)
Exports	about 12% of sales	about 44% of volume

Sources: Bajaj Auto Annual Report 2004-05 and FY2025-26 results [2] [6]. FY2004-05 figures are for the company before the 2008 demerger, so they are not strictly like for like.

The momentum continued into FY2026-27. In the July-September 2026 quarter Bajaj Auto’s standalone revenue passed Rs 20,000 crore for the first time, at Rs 20,003 crore, and net profit rose 35% to Rs 3,354 crore [46].

The company has also returned large amounts of cash to shareholders: a Rs 4,000 crore buyback at Rs 10,000 a share in 2024, and a second of up to Rs 5,633 crore at Rs 12,000 a share announced in May 2026 [42] [50].

How the wealth is held

Rajiv’s fortune is not held as a large block of shares in his own name. Promoters held about 56% of Bajaj Auto in September 2026, mostly through family holding companies such as Bajaj Holdings & Investment and Jamnalal Sons [51].

The rich lists therefore value the family together. The M3M Hurun India Rich List 2025 ranked “Niraj Bajaj & family” No. 6 with Rs 2,32,680 crore [52]. Forbes valued the Bajaj family at US$19.8 billion, No. 12 in India, on 30 September 2026, and described Rajiv as the “older son, who runs Bajaj Auto.” [53] No credible source publishes a separate figure for Rajiv alone.

The setbacks and failures

The scooter gamble

The exit from scooters is still Rajiv’s most debated decision. When Bajaj left in 2009-10, gearless scooters were starting a boom that Honda, TVS and others captured. Bajaj did not sell another scooter for about ten years, and it came back only with an electric one. Rajiv has never conceded the decision was wrong. But he has been candid about other mistakes. He has called the 100cc Discover his “biggest blunder” [90].

Losing ground at home

Rajiv’s focus on exports and premium bikes has come with a slow loss of share in India’s commuter motorcycle market. Bajaj held 27.8% of Indian motorcycle sales in FY2004-05 [2]. In 2019 he set a goal of 25% for FY2020, which the company did not reach [54]. Its domestic motorcycle share fell from 18.5% in FY2020 to 16.6% in FY2025 [55]. By the company’s own count it was 15.6% in FY2026, with Hero MotoCorp and TVS gaining [5]. In May 2025 analysts cut estimates over the share loss and Bajaj Auto shares fell about 3% in a day [56]. Strong exports, premium bikes and the Chetak have more than made up for it in profits.

KTM’s collapse

The KTM partnership that served Bajaj so well for 15 years nearly fell apart. After a post-pandemic sales boom, KTM was stuck with excess stock and high European costs. In late November 2024, KTM AG filed for court-supervised restructuring in Austria [15]. Pierer Mobility’s 2024 accounts showed revenue down 29% to €1.88 billion and a net loss of €1.08 billion, including about €850 million in impairments [15].

Bajaj, then a 49.9% partner in the holding company, had to decide whether to walk away or go in deeper. It put in €150 million (Rs 1,364 crore) in February 2025 [57]. In May 2025 it announced a €800 million package to fund the 30% cash payment creditors had accepted, and took an option to buy out Pierer’s side [58] [13]. After approval from Austria’s Takeover Commission, Bajaj took sole control of the holding company on 18 November 2025 [14] [59]. Stefan Pierer left. Bajaj Auto’s annual report puts total support at about €880 million [5].

The fix has been painful for Austria. Bajaj Mobility announced about 500 job cuts in January 2026 [60]. Rajiv’s remarks only added to local fears (see the controversies section below). The early numbers have improved. In the first half of 2026, Bajaj Mobility’s revenue rose about 65% to roughly €700 million, and it made a small operating profit in the April-June quarter. That was its first positive quarter since the restructuring, though it still made an operating loss of €24.8 million for the half-year [16]. The turnaround is not finished.

The rare-earth shock

In April 2025 China restricted exports of rare-earth magnets used in electric motors. By July, Rajiv was warning: “we are looking at a zero month in August as of now.” [64] Chetak production in July 2025 was about half the level of a year earlier [64]. Bajaj redesigned some motors to use alternative magnets and production resumed [65].

Controversies and allegations

Rajiv Bajaj has not been charged with, or found liable for, any wrongdoing by a court or regulator. The matters below are business disputes, a labour conflict, and public statements that drew criticism. Each is set out with the response and the current position.

The DTS-i patent war with TVS Motor (2007-2019)

Allegation: In 2007 Bajaj Auto sued TVS Motor, the company led by Venu Srinivasan, in the Madras High Court. It claimed that the engine in TVS’s new 125cc Flame motorcycle infringed Bajaj’s patent on its DTS-i twin-spark technology [17].

Response: TVS denied any infringement, challenged the validity of Bajaj’s patent, and filed a defamation suit against Bajaj reported at Rs 250 crore [66].

What happened next:

A single judge of the Madras High Court granted Bajaj an injunction, and a division bench set it aside on appeal.
On 16 September 2009, the Supreme Court let TVS keep selling the Flame while keeping accounts of sales. It criticised the long delay in the case and directed courts to decide intellectual-property suits quickly, normally within four months [17].

Status: On 31 October 2019 the two companies told the stock exchanges they had agreed to withdraw all pending cases in India and abroad and release each other from all liabilities [66]. The matter is closed, with no final ruling on the merits.

The Chakan strike (2013)

Allegation: Workers at the Chakan plant, led by the Vishwa Kalyan Kamgar Sanghatana union, struck from 25 June 2013. They demanded company shares for employees, a renegotiated wage deal and the reinstatement of suspended workers [67].

Response: Management refused all three demands and asked the labour court to declare the strike illegal. In August Rajiv issued an ultimatum to shift production elsewhere. “Management must manage. We are losing our patience now,” he said, adding: “To buy peace today, we cannot compromise on the work culture.” [68]

Status: The union called off the strike unconditionally on 13 August 2013 after about 50 days [67]. Later disputes with the same union, in 2018, were settled through talks at the labour commissioner’s office.

Keeping the Waluj plant open during COVID-19 (2020)

Allegation: In June-July 2020, Reuters reported that more than 250 workers at Bajaj’s Waluj plant near Aurangabad had tested positive for COVID-19, and that the company had reported two deaths. A workers’ union demanded a 10-15 day shutdown [69].

Response: Bajaj kept the plant running. According to Reuters, it wanted to learn to “live with the virus” and warned that unapproved absence would lead to pay deductions. Bajaj did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment [69].

Status: No legal or regulatory action against the company over the episode was reported.

“You have flattened the wrong curve” (2020)

Allegation: In a video conversation with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi released on 4 June 2020, Rajiv called India’s COVID lockdown “draconian.” He said: “You have flattened the wrong curve - not the infection curve but the GDP curve.” [70] BJP spokespersons attacked him. One said he was “not an expert on the coronavirus.” [71]

Response: Rajiv did not withdraw the remarks. He had defended his father’s right to criticise the government only months earlier, calling Rahul Bajaj “uncommonly courageous.” [72]

Status: A public disagreement of opinion only, with no legal consequence.

Pulling ads from “toxic” news channels (2020)

Allegation: On 8 October 2020, Rajiv told CNBC-TV18 that Bajaj Auto had “blacklisted three channels” for advertising, saying the brand “does not endorse toxicity and hate-mongering in the society.” [73] He did not name the channels. Critics, including a BJP spokesperson, said he should stop “lecturing” and focus on returns for shareholders [74].

Response: He stood by the decision, telling Gulf News: “It was a simple choice and I made it,” and that he did not want his child to inherit “an India built on hate.” [75]

Status: A stance on where the company spends its advertising money. No legal action resulted.

Quarrels over subsidies and slogans (2019-2026)

Allegation: Rajiv has repeatedly criticised government policy. He called the central FAME-II EV subsidies “flawed and unfeasible” in 2023 [76]. In March 2024 he said “mere sloganeering” about Make in India would not bring change [77]. In February 2026 he said Maharashtra’s EV policy could be the first “policy failure” he had seen in his 36-year career, because Bajaj had received only part of the state incentives it said it was owed [78]. Opposition leader Aaditya Thackeray used the remarks to attack the state government [79].

Response: The state’s industry secretary called it a budgetary matter that would be resolved. The Federal reported the dues at about Rs 75 crore [80]. Rajiv’s consistent position is that subsidies “slow innovation” and that “sustainable technologies” cannot be promoted by “unsustainable subsidies.” [48]

Status: As of 31 October 2026, there is no public report that the Maharashtra dues have been fully paid or that Bajaj has decided where its next EV plant will be. Reports that it might build outside Maharashtra cite unnamed sources and have not been confirmed by the company.

“European manufacturing is dead” (2025)

Allegation: In an interview with CNBC-TV18 in August-September 2025, as Bajaj prepared to take over KTM, Rajiv said: “To put it very simply and bluntly, European manufacturing is dead.” He also asked: “If Triumph was able to do this fifteen years ago… why not KTM?” [62] Austrian media and politicians saw this as a threat to move KTM jobs to India.

Response: KTM’s CEO Gottfried Neumeister said there were “no plans to relocate production.” After the takeover, an Upper Austrian regional official relayed Rajiv’s assurance that “KTM will always remain an Austrian company” in research, design and racing [63].

What happened next:

Bajaj Mobility cut about 500 jobs in early 2026 as part of its restructuring [60].

Status: KTM still makes bikes in Mattighofen, Austria [61]. The pace of cost cuts and the future split of production between Austria and India remain open questions.

As of 31 October 2026, none of these matters involves any pending case against Rajiv Bajaj personally. Bajaj Auto, like other large manufacturers, has routine tax disputes, which it is contesting in the normal course.

Giving back

The Bajaj family’s philanthropy goes back to Jamnalal Bajaj’s work for Gandhi’s causes. Today most of it runs through group trusts and company CSR.

In March 2020 the Bajaj Group pledged Rs 100 crore to fight COVID-19, covering hospital care, rural health and economic relief [10]. In March 2024, as part of a new “Bajaj Beyond” identity, the group committed Rs 5,000 crore over five years to CSR, aimed at skilling and helping more than 2 crore young people. That was on top of close to Rs 4,000 crore spent over the previous decade [9]. At the launch Rajiv highlighted the Bajaj Engineering Skills Training (BEST) programme, started in 2023, which trains young people for manufacturing jobs [9].

Bajaj Auto’s mandatory CSR allocation was Rs 157.32 crore in FY2024-25, much of it set aside in an unspent account for multi-year projects [4]. The EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2025 ranked the Bajaj family third, with Rs 446 crore of giving [81].

In June 2026, at the launch of the Rupa Rahul Bajaj Scholarship for Women in Engineering, named after his parents, Rajiv said: “The reason these girls are here is not because this is charity. They are here on their strength.” [82]

No reliable source documents large personal donations by Rajiv separate from the group’s giving.

Succession

Rahul Bajaj stepped down as Chairman of Bajaj Auto on 30 April 2021. Rahul’s cousin Niraj Bajaj took over as Chairman [83]. Rahul Bajaj died in Pune on 12 February 2022, aged 83 [84].

Rajiv’s own term was renewed in March 2025: he is MD and CEO until 31 March 2030 [3] [85]. At one annual general meeting he raised eyebrows by telling shareholders that Bajaj Auto needed a “younger MD.” He later said the comment had been taken out of context: “I am not going anywhere anytime soon. I have no plans to retire.” [86]

Two moves in 2026 point to how the next stage is being built:

A professional deputy. Rakesh Sharma, a long-time Bajaj executive, was made Joint MD from 1 June 2026 to 31 March 2029, still reporting to Rajiv [87].
More focus. Rajiv stepped down from the boards of Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv in 2026, citing heavier duties at Bajaj Auto’s EV arm, its finance arm and KTM [88].

His son Rishab Bajaj joined Bajaj Auto in the early 2020s (sources differ on 2021 or 2022). By January 2026 he was leading EV product strategy and fronted the launch of the Chetak C25 [89]. He is not on the board, and no successor has been named.

What their journey teaches

Earn the corner office the long way. Rajiv spent 15 years in three departments before becoming MD. The shop-floor and R&D years gave him the credibility to make radical calls, and the knowledge to make them well.

Strategy is mostly about what you give up. Leaving scooters, refusing to chase commuter-bike share and keeping the Pulsar’s message narrow all cost Bajaj something. They also gave it a clear identity and some of the best margins in the industry. You do not have to agree with every sacrifice to see the logic: a brand that tries to be everything stands for nothing.

Look for a different market, not a crowded one. When Hero Honda dominated Indian commuters, Rajiv built exports to Africa and Latin America. Today about 44% of Bajaj’s volume goes abroad. Growth is often easier where competitors are not looking. (For more on how Indian companies are building global businesses, see CapitalVia Insights.)

Small partnerships can become big assets. A Rs 300 crore minority stake in KTM in 2007 turned, over 18 years, into control of a global premium brand, acquired during a court-supervised restructuring. Patience, and being the strongest partner in a crisis, paid off. Whether the turnaround works is still being decided.

Disagreeing with your father can be loyalty. Rajiv overruled Rahul Bajaj on scooters and was publicly told his father was “hurt.” He still called his father “uncommonly courageous.” [72] Family businesses survive when the next generation can argue on the merits without breaking the family.

Speaking your mind has a price. Rajiv’s frank comments on lockdowns, news channels, subsidies and European factories have won admirers and made enemies, sometimes in the same week. Being candid in public is a choice with costs. He has taken them knowingly.

A profile for general reading, based on public records and reporting as of 31 October 2026. Not investment, tax or legal advice.