One of Russia’s richest families. Through his holding company, Basic Element, aluminium tycoon, Oleg Deripaska, controls mining, manufacturing, energy, construction, agriculture and finance companies, such as Rusal, En+, Russian Machines, Eurosibenergo and the GAZ Group. Oleg Deripaska was considered the richest person in Russia and the 9th richest in the world in 2008 before the financial crisis of that year. In 2019, Deripaska’s net worth was estimated at $3.9 billion.
After graduating from Moscow’s School of Economics, Oleg Deripaska founded a small metals trading company and established himself in Russia’s metals sector. Deripaska acquired a stake in a smelting factory in the mid-1990s. By the end of the decade, he had become a major player in the country’s aluminium industry. Politics is credited as being a factor in Deripaska’s rise and manoeuvrability in the industrial sector, as he is married to Polina Deripaska, the daughter of a close personal advisor to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Oleg Deripaska has been embroiled in controversy for his role in brokering an arrangement with the Trump administration that would benefit the political interests of Vladimir Putin.
