Who is richer than King Charles III?
Did you know? Richer than King Charles III is the new British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. What is his source of fortune and how much does he have?
The UK’s new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak shares an estimated £730 million fortune with his wife. But that count, the couple’s personal wealth is valued higher than King Charles’ (excluding state assets like jewels and palaces).
With a combined net worth of more than $800 million, Rishi Sunak is the wealthiest person to ever hold the position of prime minister of the United Kingdom. He also has a wife.
To ensure that you don’t miss out on our most important stories, exclusive interviews, and investigations, subscribe to the Fortune Features email list.
Many firsts belong to Rishi Sunak. He is the youngest prime minister in modern history, the first person of colour to serve as leader of the United Kingdom, and the first person to do so who practises a religion other than Christianity.
Additionally, he is the richest individual to have ever resided at No. 10 Downing Street, the home of the Prime Minister.
The Sunday Times estimates that Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty are the 222nd and 222nd wealthiest people in the United Kingdom, respectively, with a combined net worth of about £730 million ($826 million).
Their primary source of income is Murty’s 0.9% ownership part in Infosys, the IT firm founded by her father Narayana Murty. The pair was able to earn £11.6 million in dividend income last year thanks to the estimated £690 million value of their share. Sunak and Murty have been on the Sunday Times Rich List for the first time this year because the newspaper was only able to confirm Murty’s ownership of Infosys this year.
The remaining £40 million may be related to Sunak’s time as a partner at hedge funds Children’s Investment Fund Management and Theleme Partners, or from his time as director of Catamaran Ventures, the investment company also owned by his father-in-law, which he led from 2013 to 2015 before entering politics. According to The Sunday Times, the source of their wealth is “technology and hedge fund.”
According to a calculation made by research institute Wealth-X, Sunak’s net worth puts him ahead of the recently crowned King Charles III, who had a net worth of about $440 million prior to his inheritance and is mostly related to real estate holdings and other valuables like jewellery and art.
The combined wealth of Rishi Sunak and his wife is £730,000,000.
That is roughly equivalent to King Charles III’s projected fortune.
Keep this in mind anytime he mentions having to make “difficult decisions” that the working class will pay for.
High living expense crisis
Britons experiencing a cost-of-living problem are not blind to the irony of one of the wealthiest persons in the UK assuming a top position of power. With spiking inflation, mounting mortgage payments, and declining pensions—all made worse by an economic crisis brought on by policies taken by Sunak’s predecessor in his own party—the country is entering its worst economic period in decades as Sunak assumes the presidency.
The new prime minister will be Rishi Sunak. His family is wealthy, so starting tomorrow, I’ll be eating caviar and lobster.
According to data from the Office for National Statistics, nearly half of U.K. adults have trouble paying their rent, mortgage, or energy bills (ONS). Approximately 23 million Britons are on the verge of fuel poverty, which is the condition in which people are unable to maintain a sufficient level of warmth given their existing means of subsistence, and 2 million cannot afford to eat every day.
Sunak hasn’t shied away from inquiries about his personal riches, and in his August run for prime minister, he addressed it head-on. Sunak responded that while he is fortunate to be in his position, he wasn’t “born like this,” when questioned if he was too wealthy to lead the nation.
According to Sunak, who spoke to BBC Radio, “I don’t evaluate people by their money accounts; I assess them by their character. I think people can judge me by my deeds over the previous couple of years.”
Sunak’s bank account may be overlooked, but his history as a student at Winchester College, one of the most exclusive schools in Britain, where tuition is £46,000 per year, his time spent as a Goldman Sachs analyst, his taste for £3,500 suits and Prada loafers, and his sizable international real estate portfolio may be more difficult to overlook.
With news that his wife had avoided paying millions in taxes by claiming “non-domiciled” status on earnings from her shares in Infosys, Sunak’s fortune thrust him into an unpleasant limelight this year. She was able to save an estimated £20 million in UK taxes thanks to the status, which cost about £30,000 to get.
Following the media uproar, Murty declared that she would pay U.K. taxes on her worldwide earnings because she didn’t want the matter to “distract my husband.”
Rishi has also been characterised as being out of touch personally. In July, when Sunak was vying to become his party’s nominee for prime minister, a 2001 episode of the BBC series Middle Classes: Their Rise and Sprawl with Sunak laughing about not having any acquaintances from the working class surfaced.
In the video, Sunak states, “I have friends who are aristocrats, upper-class, and friends who are working class…well, not working-class.
I have acquaintances who are aristocrats, members of the upper class, and members of the working class, says Rishi. Not working class, then.
