Rishi Sunak will become the wealthiest British prime minister in history, as his family’s fortune exceeds that of the royals.
As the country’s third premier in less than two months, Sunak, age 42, is making significant strides. He is the youngest British leader since 1812 and the first person of color to hold the position.
But Sunak’s personal fortune is also garnering disproportionate attention, particularly as he takes the helm as the United Kingdom faces a “deep” economic crisis, which he highlighted in his first address as prime minister. According to the Sunday Times Rich List, Sunak and Akshata Murty are worth a combined $837 million (or 730 million pounds).
According to the Sunday Times, Queen Elizabeth was reported to have had a personal net worth of $424 million (370 million pounds) prior to her death.
Sunak and his wife will overtake the previous record holder to become the wealthiest inhabitants of No. 10 Downing Street, the residence of the prime minister. Edward Stanley, the 14th Earl of Derby, served as prime minister three times in the 1800s and, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was worth around $509 million in current currency.
Source of prosperity
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Sunak’s grandfather immigrated from India to East Africa, where his mother and father were born, in Tanzania and Kenya, respectively. His parents met in England following their 1960s immigration, where his father became a physician and his mother a pharmacist.
Sunak, who was born in 1980, attended the prestigious boarding school Winchester College, where he served as editor of the school newspaper and “head boy,” a leadership position for students in the United Kingdom. After graduating from college at Oxford University, he worked at Goldman Sachs for several years.
04:24 Rishi Sunak delivers his first speech as the next British prime minister.
Sunak left Goldman to pursue an MBA at Stanford University, where he met his wife, the daughter of billionaire Narayana Murty, the cofounder of a $4.5 billion Indian technology services company.
After graduating from Stanford, Sunak worked for several hedge funds. His wealth is further enhanced by his wife’s nearly 1% ownership in Infosys, which has a market value of over $77 billion.
Tax and green card concerns
His wife’s “non-domiciled” status, which allowed her to dodge U.K. taxes on foreign earnings, prompted public examination of Sunak and his wife’s tax situation earlier this year.
Murty rectified her tax status, but Sunak was plagued by a different issue: He had a green card to work in the United States while serving as an MP and later as Chancellor of the Exchequer under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Critics asserted that he was being unpatriotic by keeping his options open. Apparently, Sunak gave up his green card in October 2021.
Sunak stated at a recent gathering that people should not hold his wealth against him.
According to Reuters, he remarked, “I believe in our country, we assess people not by their money account but by their character and behavior.” Yes, I’m really fortunate to be in the position I’m in right now, but I wasn’t born this way.