He graduated with honors from the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineering (MIIT) and enrolled in graduate school at the Computing Centre of the Academy of Sciences. He is a Candidate of Mathematical Sciences.

Viktor Vekselberg co-founded the Renova Group in 1990. He founded the SUAL Group in 1996 and served as the Chairman until 2003. Viktor Vekselberg served on the Board of Directors of TNK-BP from 2003 to 2013. He was Chairman of the Board of Directors at United Company RUSAL from 2007 to March 2012.

Vekselberg is a Member of the Board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) and Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the RSPP.

In March 2010 Viktor Vekselberg was appointed head of the Russian side of the project to create the Skolkovo Innovation Center by decree of then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. He has been the President of the Development Fund of the Center of the Development and Commercialization of New Technologies (the Skolkovo Fund).

In 2014, Viktor Vekselberg ranked third on the Forbes magazine list of the wealthiest businessman in Russia.