Patrice Motsepe
Net Worth: $2.3 billion
Country of Origin: Soweto, South Africa
Patrice Motsepe is the executive chairman and founder of African Rainbow Minerals. The mining tycoon was named South Africa’s richest man in 2012. After earning his bachelor’s and a law degree, he became the first black partner in a South African law firm in 1994. Motsepe majored in mining and business law, and he soon developed a mining services company, where services would clean gold dust from inside mine shafts. The price of purchasing gold in 1997 was at an extreme low, so the entrepreneur quickly struck up several deals and purchased gold mines from AngloGold. In 1999 he joined two associates to form Greene and Partners Investments.
The publicly traded firm processes chrome, platinum, copper, nickel, coal, iron, manganese, and gold. He was awarded with South Africa’s Best Entrepreneur Award in 2002 and was named the 503rd richest person in the world according to Forbes World Billionaires List in 2008. He became chairman of Teal Exploration and Mining Inc. in 2005. He is South Africa’s first black billionaire, and earlier this year he generously donated $1 million to fight the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa.