Rishi Sunak has become Prime Minister after replacing Liz Truss who departs after a disastrous time in office that lasted only weeks. The former chancellor met King Charles III on Tuesday where he was formally appointed to Number 10 after Ms Truss tendered her resignation to the monarch.
Mr Sunak won the Conservative leadership contest on Monday after Penny Mordaunt, the only remaining hopeful who could have taken him to a run-off, announced she had withdrawn from the race following ex-PM Boris Johnson's decision to drop out on Sunday. Despite claiming to have obtained the 100 MPs needed to run Mr Johnson said in a statement that it "would simply not be the right thing to do". Mr Sunak was due to address the nation on Tuesday and you can follow all the latest updates here.
In a brief 86-second speech on Monday Mr Sunak paid tribute to his predecessor and promised to deliver "day in, day out" as leader. At 42 he is the youngest prime minister in modern history – and also one of the richest. Although his political career has been comparatively short – just seven years as an MP and two years in the Cabinet – Mr Sunak has a huge family fortune in addition to years spent in the financial sector. Here is a run-down of the vast wealth of Rishi Sunak, the UK's new prime minister.
Earlier this year Mr Sunak was included in the Sunday Times rich list, detailing the UK’s wealthiest people, making him the first frontline politician to make the list since its inception in 1989, according to The Guardian. The list put he and his wife Akshata Murty's net worth at a whopping £730m with an impressive portfolio of properties to boot.
What is the source of the new prime minister's wealth? Categorised by the Sunday Times' list as “technology and hedge fund”, the bulk of Mr Sunak and his family's fortune comes from his wife's father, billionaire NR Narayana Murthy. Described by Time Magazine as “the father of the Indian IT sector”, Mr Murthy co-founded IT company Infosys in 1981 but stood down as executive chairman in 2013, though he remains chairman emeritus. Infosys provides business consulting, information technology, and outsourcing and had total assets worth $15bn (more than £13bn) as of 2022. It is the 602nd largest public company in the world according to the Forbes Global 2000 ranking. Akshata Murty's mother is Sudha Murty, an Indian engineering teacher, author, and social worker who is now chairperson of the Infosys Foundation. The new Prime Minister's wife owns a 0.93% stake in the tech firm worth approximately £690m and receives millions of pounds in dividends every year.
Born to African-born Hindu parents of Indian Punjabi descent, Mr Sunak was born in Southampton and attended both Winchester College – England’s oldest public school – and Oxford University where he studied philosophy, politics, and economics. He later received a scholarship to Stanford in California before becoming an analyst at Goldman Sachs from 2001 to 2004 and worked for a number of hedge fund investment firms, including one owned by his father-in-law between 2013 and 2015.
Since being elected to the House of Commons for Richmond in North Yorkshire in 2015 – an MP's salary is currently £84,144 a year – Mr Sunak's finances have come under greater scrutiny, especially during his time as chancellor which boasted a salary of more than £150,000. During the summer leadership contest he was criticised by culture secretary Nadine Dorries after the media reported him wearing a bespoke suit worth £3,500 to a leadership vote as well as attending a construction site in Teesside wearing Prada loafers worth £450.
Back in July 2020 Mr Sunak posed for a pre-budget photo with an Ember travel mug worth £180 whose product description said it "allows you to set an exact drinking temperature and keeps it there for up to three hours, so your coffee is never too hot, or too cold". The former chancellor's expensive taste extends to a portfolio of four properties spread across the world and valued at more than £15m. They include his five-bedroom mews house in Kensington, west London, estimated by estate agents to be worth more than £7m, and a Grade II-listed Georgian manor house retreat in Kirby Sigston, North Yorkshire valued at £2m. The Guardian has raised the cost of the former chancellor's Kirby Sigston retreat which reportedly has a £400,000 indoor swimming pool, gym, yoga studio, hot tub, and tennis court. It's been estimated that it could cost more than £14,000 a year to heat the 12x5 metre pool – almost six times the average family’s energy bill.
In April it was revealed that Mr Sunak's wife claimed non-domicile status allowing her to avoid UK tax on the £11.6m in annual dividends she collects from her father’s firm. The Liberal Democrats reported Mr Sunak to a parliamentary watchdog in April over investments in a blind trust – a set-up in which details of assets are kept from their owner, commonly to avoid conflicts of interest. Mr Sunak said he reported after becoming chief secretary to the Treasury in 2019 that he had investments in a blind trust but the Lib Dems contested that that he had not declared these under the MPs' register of financial interests during the previous four years in parliament, including his time as a housing minister from 2018 to 2019.
Mr Sunak has addressed his finances on a number of occasions, notably during the summer leadership campaign, when he said he wasn't “born like this" and added: "I think in our country we judge people not by their bank account – we judge them by their character and their actions.” While he has not revealed exactly how much money he has or how it is invested he has insisted that people are more focused on the work he does. "Values are what are important – what I’m wearing is irrelevant to all of that," he said earlier this year.
As well as being the 22nd-richest person in Britain Mr Sunak is also the first ever occupant of of Number 10 to be richer than the monarch in Buckingham Palace (his estimated £730m fortune is double that of King Charles and Queen Consort Camilla’s estimated £300-350m wealth). His wealth has led some to question whether he understands the crippling cost of living crisis facing millions of households but Mr Sunak has pledged to address the UK's "profound economic challenge".
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