The ‘King of Britain’s geeks’ gets a record £682m payday: He grew up in the

A Russian-born trader described as ‘king of the geeks’ has landed one of Britain’s biggest ever paydays as his hi-tech trading firm earned him £682million last year.

Alex Gerko took home the staggering sum thanks to the success of his London-based company XTX Markets, which uses machine learning to profit from financial trading.

It is the latest milestone in the extraordinary rags-to-riches tale of 45-year-old Mr Gerko, who went to school in a run-down area of Moscow where he excelled at maths and later moved to the UK.

Despite growing up in the shadow of a tractor factory, Mr Gerko now owns a huge estate in the Chilterns and a £22million seven-bedroom home in London.

He has been outspoken in opposition to the war in Ukraine and renounced his Russian citizenship three years ago.

With a fortune estimated at £8.7billion placing him at number 20 on this year’s Sunday Times Rich List, he is also believed to be Britain’s biggest taxpayer, contributing £664million in 2023 alone.

And he has poured tens of millions of pounds into UK charities, including Great Ormond Street Hospital, NHS Charities Together and the Trussell Trust, which runs food banks.

The father of three and his wife Elena, a former Bank of England economist, also donated £1.5million to the London Symphony Orchestra and he has backed hundreds of ‘maths circles’, which provide after-school and weekend classes for children.

Russian-born trader Alex Gerko, 45, has been described as ‘king of the geeks’

Mr Gerko went to school in a run-down area of Moscow and later moved to the UK

Mr Gerko (left) during a visit to the King’s College London Mathematics School in 2023

XTX has given millions to Nottingham University to boost postgraduate maths research as well as to Oxford to fund a scholarship scheme helping women to study maths PhDs. 

Latest results from the company showed it generated a £1.28billion profit pool in 2024, divided up among the 31 members who own the company.

The largest chunk, of £682.5million, went to a single individual – believed to be Mr Gerko, with the rest split between the other 30, who are the firm’s top employees.

It is a far cry from Mr Gerko’s humble origins.

Growing up in the Soviet Union as its Communist regime disintegrated, he went to school near the Mosselmarsh tractor factory in Moscow.

He excelled at maths and by the age of 12 was taking part in regional competitions before taking a PhD in the subject.

Mr Gerko began his career trading equities at Deutsche Bank before switching to foreign exchange and moving to London in 2006.

In 2015 he founded XTX Markets, one of the fastest-growing financial tech firms. With 250 employees, it trades across 35 countries and manages around £186 billion worth of transactions every day.

At the heart of the firm’s trading strategies is a supercomputer, powered by Nvidia AI chips, in Iceland – where cold weather keeps a lid on cooling cost and cheap geothermal energy.

XTX has created the vast computing power at the site by spending more than £150million on the chips, it has been reported.

Its researchers use the technology to scan a vast array of market data to build statistical models that learn how to price different assets for investors.

Mr Gerko took British citizenship in 2016.

Outspoken on social media, he has sharply criticised Russia over its invasion of Ukraine – tweeting ‘Nuremberg is waiting for you’ to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov – as well as supporters of terrorist group Hamas.

And Britain’s Labour government has not escaped his ire.

On LinkedIn, Mr Gerko said ‘they are taking us…