[2] In 1961, Syed Mokhtar moved to Johor Bahru where he spent the next 6 years before returning to Alor Setar where he attended St. Michael's Secondary School.
This led to Syed Mokhtar abandoning his studies a few months prior to completing his Secondary 5, as his family could not afford to pay for his examination fees.
[3][2] In May 2020, Malaysia's Ministry of Communications and Multimedia awarded the highly lucrative 5G telecommunications spectrum contract to a company called ALTEL, a subsidiary of Puncak Semangat, a firm primarily controlled by Syed Mokhtar.
In 2014 he was recognized by Forbes Asia as a Hero of Philanthropy due to his contribution to refugees in Pakistan, orphans in Guinea and disaster victims in China, Indonesia] and Iran.
[5] The Albukhary Foundation is an international non-profit charitable organization headquartered in Malaysia which was founded on the Islamic values of faith (Taqwa) and compassion (Ehsan).
Since it is founded on Islamic values, the foundation does not discriminate on the grounds of race, nationality, ethnic origin and religion.