Lőrinc Mészáros
Lőrinc Mészáros | |
|---|---|
| Mayor of Felcsút | |
| In office 19 June 2011 – 16 September 2018 | |
| Preceded by | György Varga |
| Succeeded by | László István Mészáros |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 24 February 1966 |
| Citizenship | Hungarian |
| Party | Fidesz (2010–present) |
| Nickname | Orban's wallet
The plumber of the nation Pénztáros Lőrinc ("cashier" Lőrinc) |
Lőrinc Mészáros (born 24 February 1966) is a Hungarian businessman and former politician who served as mayor of the Hungarian village Felcsút between 2011 and 2018. With an estimated wealth of 1,241 trillion forints ($3.2 billion) as of December 2024, he is the richest person in Hungary. Several media outlets refer to him as an "oligarch".
Due to the perception that he owes his extreme wealth to his close ties to Fidesz and its leader Viktor Orbán, with whom he was childhood friends, Mészáros is one of the most controversial subjects of contemporary Hungarian social and political discourse. Since the 2010 elections, in which Fidesz won a parliamentary supermajority, Mészáros's wealth has doubled annually. He is regularly identified as Orbán's strawman. Mészáros has acknowledged the significance of his relationship with Orbán, saying in 2017 that "[his] fortune is thanks to three factors: God, luck, and Viktor Orbán."