Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, has pushed back on Forbes’ estimate of his net worth, telling an interviewer that his oil refinery alone is worth more than $40 billion before any of his other assets are counted, suggesting his total fortune is significantly larger than what public trackers currently show.
The comments came during a conversation with The School of Hard Knocks, a social media interview platform run by 23-year-old creator James Dumoulin, who has hosted dozens of billionaires and global entrepreneurs on the format. When Dumoulin referenced Forbes’ estimate of approximately $38 billion, Dangote said he could not give a precise figure for his total wealth but pointed directly to his flagship asset as evidence the public estimates fall short. “My refinery is worth over $40 billion, just the refinery alone,” he said, adding that a clearer picture of his total net worth would emerge in due course.
Dangote explained that much of his business empire remains privately held, which makes outside valuations inherently difficult. “They said I am worth $38 billion because most of our businesses are not listed yet,” he said. The refinery, the cement business, the fertiliser operation, the sugar business and a range of other interests across the continent are either wholly private or majority-controlled through privately held holding structures, giving the trackers limited visibility into their actual market value.
The gap between Dangote’s self-assessment and the tracker figures is not small. Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List has estimated his net worth at approximately $32.8 billion at various recent points in 2026. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which applies different methodology to his private assets, placed him at $36.7 billion as of June 8, 2026, a year-to-date gain of nearly $5 billion driven largely by the rising valuation of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery. Bloomberg values the refinery itself at approximately $20 billion based on its construction cost, a figure Dangote’s comment implies is a significant undercount of its real market value. His refinery stake, at 92.3 percent of a facility Bloomberg values conservatively, is the single largest component of his tracked fortune, and his argument is that the tracker’s methodology fails to capture what the asset would actually command in a transaction.
The refinery’s operational trajectory provides some context for his confidence. The 650,000 barrel-per-day facility at Lekki, Lagos, began operations in early 2024 and has expanded rapidly. By March 2026, Nigeria had crossed into net petroleum exporter territory for the first time in decades, driven primarily by the refinery’s output. The facility supplied more than 95 percent of Nigeria’s aviation fuel and exported 12 cargoes of refined petroleum products in a single month to markets in Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Tanzania, Ghana and Togo, as well as jet fuel to Europe following disruptions caused by the US-Iran conflict’s impact on the Strait of Hormuz shipping route. In the same interview, Dangote reportedly said he made approximately $10 billion in a single quarter when asked about the most money he had made in a year, though no other outlet has independently corroborated that figure against the refinery’s reported financial results.
Dangote’s comments land at a moment of intense public interest in his wealth trajectory. Forbes has estimated that he added approximately $4.6 billion to his fortune in 2026 alone following a 69 percent surge in Dangote Cement shares since March 2025, and his company separately announced a $400 million deal with a Chinese machinery manufacturer aimed at doubling the refinery’s capacity by 2029. A pan-African IPO for the refinery, targeting listings across multiple African exchanges and previously valued at up to $50 billion, remains a stated priority for the group, and Dangote has indicated the listing could proceed as early as late 2026. A public listing would for the first time give the market a transparent, exchange-tested valuation of the asset that both Forbes and Bloomberg have until now had to estimate from the outside.
Whether his total fortune ultimately lands closer to Forbes’ figure, Bloomberg’s estimate or the higher number Dangote himself implied will likely depend on how the refinery’s export numbers develop and whether the IPO proceeds on its current timeline. When it does, the world’s wealth trackers will for the first time have market data rather than construction cost and net present value assumptions to work with. If Dangote’s own $40 billion-plus refinery valuation is correct, the implications for his ranked position among the world’s wealthiest individuals would be substantial.
As for how he wants to be remembered, Dangote told Dumoulin he wants to be known as someone who industrialised Africa, a theme consistent with every major public statement he has made about his industrial ambitions across cement, fertiliser, petrochemicals and energy across the continent.
