Jaan Tallinn tops Äripäev rich list with €10.3bn net worth
Tech entrepreneur Jaan Tallinn tops this year's Äripäev rich list with an estimated net worth of €10.3 billion.
There are three billionaires on the list, while all top 10 richest are men.
Tallinn, who co-founded Skype in 2003 and is now a leading figure in AI development, is joined in an unchanged top five by Wise co-founders Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus, Bolt founder Markus Villig and media and entertainment mogul Margus Linnamäe.
Äripäev says the Top 500 as a whole also saw strong growth, with the wealth of Estonia's richest people rising by about a third on the year, to €41.4 billion.
The top 10 in the Äripäev 2026 Estonian rich list, with their net worths, are:
- Jaan Tallinn (Metaplanet Holdings, Ambient Sound Investments): €10.318 billion
- Kristo Käärmann (Wise): €1.933 billion
- Taavet Hinrikus (Skaala Investments, Wise): €1.476 billion
- Markus Villig (Bolt): €960.8 million
- Margus Linnamäe (MM Grupp): €686.9 million
- Raul Kirjanen (AS Graanul): €559.2 million
- Oleg Ossinovski (Skinest Grupp): €551.1 million
- Anders Anderson: €497.3 million
- Oliver Leisalu (Bolt): €461.2 million
- Fjodor Berman (BLRT Grupp): €394.8 million
The first woman to appear on the list is Kristi Veeber, one of the owners of holding company Giga, who ranks 46th with €131.3 million.
Journalist: Bulk of Jaan Tallinn wealth derives from shares in Anthropic
Most of Jaan Tallinn's €10.3 billion fortune comes from AI, Äripäev journalist Ken Rohelaan said, with the businessman's stake in Anthropic — the US AI company behind the Claude chatbot — alone valued at nearly €9.8 billion.
This represented a large leap forward in his estimated net worth, Rohelaan said, telling "Terevisioon": "We already suspected a year or two ago that his wealth could be greater than what we had seen or perceived so far, but for the figure to now come in at more than €10 billion was certainly a surprise".
Tallinn got an early start on the AI boom, he noted. "His investments have mainly been focused on artificial intelligence. We may have known about AI for only a few years, but Jaan Tallinn got involved much earlier, and this early entry into the right field is essentially the main reason that helped him get this far," Rohelaan said.
Rohelaan also highlighted Berman's rise to 10th place as the year's biggest change, driven by a buyout of minority shareholders.
Editor's note: This piece was updated to include information on Jaan Tallinn and AI, and quotes from Ken Rohelaan.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
Source: Äripäev
