Hungary's business elite is rapidly distancing itself from outgoing premier Viktor Orbán's network, weeks after Péter Magyar's Tisza Party won an election landslide. Magyar, a former regime insider who broke with Orbán in 2024, has pledged to prosecute officials and corporate leaders accused of corruption under the so-called "system of national co-operation" set up to reward loyalists. He says oligarch families have already begun moving abroad, ringfencing assets, withdrawing children from school and hiring private security ahead of departure.
Magyar singled out Orbán's childhood friend Lőrinc Mészáros, Hungary's wealthiest man, who is reportedly preparing to relocate to Dubai with his family; Mészáros's company says it has written to Magyar to "resolve the tense situation" and the FT could not verify the relocation. Earlier in April, Magyar named Ádám Matolcsy — son of former central bank governor György Matolcsy — whose companies are accused of siphoning off more than €1bn from the central bank over a decade; both deny wrongdoing. Magyar said his government would ask the UAE to extradite Ádám "by coercive measures if needed", though the two countries have no extradition treaty. Orbán's son-in-law István Tiborcz moved to New York last year but has pledged to keep his business in Hungary via investment vehicle BDPST.
The clean-up is also a precondition for unlocking tens of billions of euros of EU funds frozen by Brussels over corruption. Investor Dániel Jellinek of Indotek, who exited the Orbán-linked trucking group Waberer's Group in 2024, said his phone "lit up" on election night with foreign private equity firms wanting back into Hungarian assets, "because Hungary is cheap". OTP chairman Sándor Csányi, a long-time Orbán friend, said he had nothing to fear "unlike those who got work without correct tenders". Source: Financial Times, 28 April 2026, Marton Dunai.