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 £8.7bn placing him at number 20 on this year’s Sunday Times Rich List, he once ranked as Britain’s biggest taxpayer, contributing £664m in 2023. Last year he contributed £202m – still in the top ten.
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 is married to former Bank of England economist Elena Gerko, pictured in 2013
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 the University of Nottingham to boost postgraduate maths research as well as funding an Oxford scholarship scheme helping women to study maths PhDs.
Latest results from the company showed it generated a £1.28billion profit pool in 2024, divided 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 Rostselmash 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 £186billion in 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 for fools’ after Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle claimed that opponents of the Online Safety Act – which regulates online content – were ‘on the side of predators’.
In another post, he said: ‘UK will soon have about as much freedom of speech as Russia if we don’t stop this’.
He owns a 150-acre estate in the Chilterns known as Teletubby House because it is sunken into the surrounding hillside, resembling the hideaway in the children’s TV show, as well as a £22million seven-bedroom home in Primrose Hill, north London.
At work, the ‘geeks’ behind XTX’s success enjoy suitably sci-fi décor.
Mr Gerko (right) during a visit to the King’s College London Mathematics School in 2023
One person who knows him has been quoted saying: ‘They’re mega geeks. They are the kings of the geek world.’
The company’s King’s Cross HQ features a replica of the Apollo 11 spacecraft’s command module in the canteen, the Financial Times has reported, while models of Battlestar Galactica robots stand around the office.
XTX is also a major supporter of Martingale, a foundation which provides postgraduate scholarships to people from lower income backgrounds to universities including Bristol, Birmingham, Oxford and Cambridge.
A family office set up by Mr Gerko to manage his wealth is named Cromulon Capital after the human head-shaped planets from the sci-fi show Rick and Morty.
The billionaire has said he is ‘very happy to pay a ton of taxes’.
But last year he lost a legal dispute over the tax treatment of profits he and other traders made while working for hedge fund GSA Capital between 2010 and 2015.
Payments were structured in the hope that the profits would be taxed at corporation tax rates rather than individually at higher income tax rates but judges ruled against that.
Mr Gerko said he fundamentally disagreed with the judgment which he said resulted in ‘massive double taxation’.
