Gina Rinehart has been the richest person in Australia for years, making billions from her iron ore mines.
But just how rich is she?
Here’s what you need to know.
How rich is Gina Rinehart?
Rinehart’s wealth is estimated to be about $40bn.
The median Australian is worth about $400,000, so Rinehart has the wealth of 100,000 Australians.
She’s also one of the richest people in the world – at the time of publication Bloomberg pegs her at No 83 (estimating her wealth at US$23.1bn) and Forbes places her at No 61 (with US$29bn). Those values change daily because they depend on estimates of future sales and prices.
Rinehart became the richest person in Australia in 2011 when her fortune was estimated at $10bn. She lost the crown in 2015 but resurgent iron ore prices have put her back on top since 2020.
The second-richest Australian, Harry Triguboff, has a fortune of about $26.5bn. Elon Musk (US$369.7bn) is 13 times wealthier than Rinehart and Jeff Bezos (US$202bn) is about seven times wealthier.
For a brief moment in 2012, Rinehart was also estimated to be the richest woman in the world, knocking off Christy Walton, the widow of the founder of the US shopping chain Walmart. The richest woman now is Alice Walton, also a Walmart heir.
Where does Rinehart’s wealth come from?
Rinehart’s company Hancock Prospecting reported more than $40bn in assets in 2024 and has made $5bn in annual profit for the last six years.
She first appeared on the BRW (later Australian Financial Review) rich list in 1992 after her father, Lang Hancock, died and left her in control of his company.
She has said Hancock Prospecting was practically bankrupt when she took over, with few assets and massive debts, though it did have an estimated $20m annual income from some of Rio Tinto’s iron ore mines in Western Australia.
That income stream has handed Rinehart more than $3bn in the three decades since, but the bulk of Hancock Prospecting’s earnings now comes from its mines at Roy Hill and Hope Downs, which respectively earn about $3bn and $1bn every year.
Rinehart has billions of dollars in other resources projects including lithium, copper, gas and coal, plus an estimated $500m in cash.
Only part of the profits from Hancock Prospecting are paid out as cash to Rinehart personally. She owns a 76% stake in the company, which reported providing dividends of $553m last financial year.
How long did it take her to get to $40bn?
Rinehart was left with $75m after her father died, according to contemporary estimates.
That figure edged up in the 1990s but soared in the early 2000s, as the mining boom kicked in and Rinehart announced her first Hancock Prospecting-owned mine. She was a billionaire by 2006.
Her wealth dipped in the 2010s and is likely to have slid amid the chaos resulting from Donald Trump’s tariffs – wealth estimates bounce around as predicted sales and iron ore prices rise and fall.
Hancock Prospecting made nearly $5.6bn in profit last financial year, about as much money as Greenland’s entire economy. That’s more than $600,000 an hour, after tax, pouring into the company coffers.
What does Rinehart spend her money on?
She has bought up plenty of real estate around her Perth mansion plus a reported five waterfront homes in Queensland. Rinehart’s companies also own huge swathes of land: more than 9.2m hectares – totally an area bigger than Tasmania – and the largest private landholding in the country, according to Guardian Australia’s 2021 estimates.
She also throws lavish parties, including a riverboat cruise during the Paris Olympics for the many swimmers and rowers she has sponsored and her own 70th birthday party, which featured a horse show and pyrotechnics.
Rinehart has cash to burn for travel, flying the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, out to her birthday and other engagements, and travelling to the US herself to celebrate Donald Trump’s re-election and inauguration.
And she has splashed out $2bn on US companies, including $35m in the Rupert Murdoch-founded Fox Corp and $12m in Tesla – though these investments have taken a serious hit amid the tariff uncertainty.
Back home she has bought up Australian staples including the beef company S Kidman and Co and the country fashion labels Driza-Bone and Rossi Boots. She has also bought and sold stakes in newspapers and Channel 10.
What could she spend her money on?
There’s a lot you could do with $40bn if it could be converted to cash.
She could buy a $3m mansion every day for the next 30 years.
As an avowed supporter of nuclear energy, she could fund the construction of four nuclear reactors, taking the optimistic assumption each would cost less than $10bn (though experts say just one could be double or triple that cost).
And as a Trump fan, she could put in an opening bid for Greenland, which has an estimated value of at least A$20bn.
The extent of Rinehart’s philanthropy is not known or declared but in the last decade she has donated millions to the Australian swimming team and in 2022 was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia, in part for her contribution to “philanthropic initiatives”.
If she put aside $10bn a year, she could raise everyone on jobseeker above the poverty line, according to calculations by the Australia Institute.
It costs about $500,000 to build a house on average – so Rinehart’s wealth could fund the construction of 80,000 homes.
• Listen to episode three of Gina: Love and money
