Africa’s richest individuals: Top five dominated by a South African
Here’s a breakdown of Africa’s richest individuals, with three of the top five, including the number one, hailing from South Africa.
Over the first three quarters of 2024, Africa’s business landscape experienced significant shifts, reflected in the fluctuations of the net worth of several of the continent’s wealthiest individuals.
Top spot: Johann Rupert
South African billionaire Johann Rupert, who at the beginning of the year had a net worth of USD10.3 billion, presently boasts a net worth of USD 13.9 billion, as reported by Pulse.
Africa’s wealthiest people: Top five
Following are the five richest Africans in Q4 of 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.
This index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest people with figures being updated at the close of every trading day in New York.
| Rank | Name | Country | Net worth |
| 1 | Johann Rupert | South Africa | USD 13.9 billion |
| 2 | Aliko Dangote | Nigeria | USD 12.7 billion |
| 3 | Nicky Oppenheimer | South Africa | USD 11.4 billion |
| 4 | Nassef Sawiris | Egypt | USD 9.54 billion |
| 5 | Natie Kirsh | South Africa | USD 9.22 billion |
For Aliko Dangote, markedly one of the wealthiest individuals in Africa, the year was a combination of achievements and losses. He successfully set up his oil refinery, but his overall earnings took a hit. This was largely due to Nigeria’s unpredictable economy, which has been struggling with rising inflation rates and a significant drop in the value of its currency.
Nicky Oppenheimer and Nassef Sawiris also experienced fluctuations throughout the year but are generally richer now than they were at the start of the year.
World’s top 10
As per the latest data, the following are the current top 10 richest people worldwide:
1. Elon Musk
2. Mark Zuckerberg
3. Jeff Bezos
4. Bernard Arnault
5. Larry Ellison
6. Bill Gates
7. Larry Page
8. Warren Buffett
9. Steve Ballmer
10. Sergey Brin
All of them are from the US with the exclusion of Bernard Arnault, who is from France.
SA-born Elon Musk
As reported by the BBC, Elon Musk was born in Pretoria and showed his talents for entrepreneurship at an early age, doing door-to-door sales of homemade Easter eggs. Markedly, he developed his first computer game at the age of 12.
He has described his childhood as difficult, affected by his parents’ divorce, bullying at school and his own difficulty picking up on social cues because of Asperger’s Syndrome. At the earliest opportunity, he left home for college, moving to Canada and then the US, where he studied economics and physics at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League college.