Only two Africans make the Forbes top 100 greatest living business minds, and they are from one country

shakirudeen taiwo

September 25, 2017 6:11 PM

There are many more Africans that are qualified to be on this list.

Forbes has published a list of

Of the hundred businessmen, there are only two Africans and both are from South Africa - Patrice Motsepe and Elon Musk.

According to the magazine, these men are entrepreneurs and prophets of capitalism whose business ideas have revolutionized the world.

“To celebrate Forbes’ centennial, we amassed an A-to-Z encyclopedia of ideas from 100 entrepreneurs, visionaries and prophets of capitalism—the greatest ever collection of business essayists and greatest ever portrait portfolio in business history.”

Here are the two African and what you should know about them.

1. Patrice Motsepe – Founder of African Rainbow Minerals

Mr Patrice Motsepe is a South African mining magnate and Africa’s first black billionaire. He made his fortune investing in mining, finance and entertainment businesses.

According to African Rainbow Capital (ARC), Mostepe became an entrepreneur at the age of seven working in his father’s grocery shop.

He founded African Rainbow Minerals in 1997 and transformed it into a giant mining company. He is also the owner of Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club,the reigning African club champions.

Motsepe stated about his business model which was anchored on the Ubuntu's philosophy of ‘I am because you are.’

“After I completed my first significant transaction, buying mines that were closed or about to close, with a demotivated workforce of 8,000, who for years had been told, ‘Guys, you're not cutting it,’ people asked if I was mad. But we ran our business differently and it worked -- we paid our workers based on profitability, with bonuses based on aspirational targets that, if achieved, created money for the mine workers, the company and its shareholders alike,” he told Forbes.

2. Elon Musk – Chief Executive Officer, Tesla and SpaceX

Mr Elon Musk is one of the leading figures in the deployment of Artificial intelligence for commercial purposes. He has two big dreams of shuttling humans to Mars and bringing electric vehicles to the mass market.

“Artificial intelligence will provide many societal benefits...However, with AI we may be summoning the demon.”

Musk left South Africa at the age of 17 for Canada and now runs two of the leading most innovative tech companies in the world – Tesla and SpaceX.

To Musk, there are many societal benefits of Artificial intelligence and he is on the mission to showing that to the world.

shakirudeen taiwo

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