𝗜𝗦 𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗜𝗩𝗘’𝗦 𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗘𝗬 𝗛𝗜𝗦? 𝗕𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗜𝗥𝗘𝗦 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗦𝗘𝗘𝗡 𝗕𝗬 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗜𝗥 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗧, 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗞.

Hopewell Chin’ono makes the point that Strive is a billionaire. But Rutendo queries that.

Hopewell, the debate about whether Strive is a billionaire should not be measured by what is allegedly in his bank account or the value of his shares. It should be measured by the number of feathers the eagle drops or his impact on the economy and the nation.

For example, when Strive allegedly became a billionaire from a cellular network in Zimbabwe between 2000 and 2010, Zimbabwe’s economy contracted from $8.8 billion to $7.1 billion. Zimbabwe had no fuel, government was broke, hospitals had no medicine, inflation broke world records, and the nation had no infrastructure. Zimbabwe became a laughing stock under the rise of this so-called billionaire.

However, when Kuda Tagwirei’s company Sakunda became the biggest company by revenue in Zimbabwe, he supplied Zimbabwe’s fuel needs, fuel queues ended, and government entrusted him with control of the fuel pipeline because it couldn’t afford to run it and the pipeline carried 1.5 billion liters of fuel a year since. He formed an investment bank, bought the biggest banks, and funded government infrastructure programmes (roads and dams) and food production, which has now made Zimbabwe wheat self-sufficient.

Through Tagwirei’s rise to becoming a billionaire, he invested and reinvested, ensuring fuel, food, and capital supply. This built a vibrant economy that attracted investment and led to Zimbabwe’s reindustrialisation—now hosting Africa’s largest steel mill, lithium processing plant, tobacco processing plant, and waste-processing plants. He even funded the legal fight against sanctions, that contributed to the removal of Executive Order sanctions.

This, in turn, created more Black millionaires in construction, supported by banks controlled by Tagwirei and his associates. As a result, from 2010 to 2025, Zimbabwe’s economy grew from the $7 billion Strive left it at while he was getting rich, to $53 billion. We can feel that Zimbabwe has a Dangote- or Rothschild-type billionaire influencing the economy with Tagwirei. None of this happened when Strive was the only Black billionaire in Zimbabwe, hence many speculate that his money is not his but it belongs to western handlers.

It is similar to how Nigeria now has the biggest oil refinery in Africa because Dangote, a billionaire, invested in it—creating more industry in Nigeria and in turn more millionaires, and more billionaires. How many Black millionaires were created in Zimbabwe while Strive was becoming a billionaire?

Strive was given favourable conditions by government to create a cellular network that made him a billionaire in Zimbabwe and the first Black billionaire in the UK, but we have not seen the benefits. He was effectively given the right to print money, protected by Black empowerment laws that excluded whites and foreign cellular networks from bidding for the same licence, which was ring-fenced for Black Zimbabweans.

Had Kuda Tagwirei, Delish Nguwaya or Obey Chimuka been given that same cellular licence — with their home biased investment culture and commitment to funding Zim — where would Zimbabwe be today? They would likely have given us the best cellular network in Africa and created more local tech millionaires from the largesse of that licence.

Strive’s footprint and impact on Zimbabwe does not illustrate that he is a billionaire, which is why many question whether the money is truly his or belongs to handlers. I can even say that someone like me, who has no money, has made a bigger impact by contributing to the removal of sanctions — which has injected billions into Zimbabwe’s economy. But this was only possible because “real billionaires” backed our case in court.

Now imagine if people like me were to receive the same deals and tenders Strive received — we would turn Zimbabwe into a first-world country because real billionaires make impact -they transform their own.