Bus driver's son who rose to save his local football club and was friends with Stephen Hawking becomes tech billionaire

By OLIVIA CHRISTIE, NEWS REPORTER Published: 18:44, 6 June 2026 | Updated: 18:44, 6 June 2026 A bus driver's son and former friend of Stephen Hawking has become a billionaire - establishing himself as one of Britain's richest men. Ilyas Khan, a 63-year-old tech entrepreneur, was hailed for investing in his local football club Accrington Stanley FC and saving it from bankruptcy.  He founded his business Cambridge Quantum Computing in 2014 and it went public on the US stock market this weekend.  It rebranded as Quantinuum when it merged with the quantum business of the US conglomerate Honeywell in 2021.  Mr Khan, who started his career as a banker before completing a maths degree in his 40s, has retained the biggest proportion of the shareholding.   Quantinuum was valued at $14.3 billion or £10.75 billion after it was listed on New York's Nasdaq exchange on Friday.  Ilyas Khan, a 63-year-old tech entrepreneur, was hailed for investing in his local football club Accrington Stanley FC and saving it from bankruptcy Mr Khan's 15 per cent stake is currently worth £1.6billion, making him one of the UK's wealthiest tech entrepreneurs. He was brought up in Lancashire where his father worked as a bus driver.  Mr Khan excelled at school and went on to study at London's School of Oriental and African Studies.  He started his career at fund management giant Schroders before moving to Citi and UBS to work in the banking sector. Next, Mr Khan moved to Hong Kong where he co-founded Techpacific.com, which made venture capital investments in Asia.  He sold this business for $700million, allowing him to turn his attention to a maths degree at the Open University.  Mr Khan moved back to the UK in 2009 and became a hero in his home town of Accrington when he invested hundreds of thousands of pounds to save the football club.  He had put money into the club before when he named one of the stands after his late mother.  Mr Khan was also a friend of Stephen Hawking.  He was the chair of the Stephen Hawking Foundation and co-founder of Accelerate Cambridge, which puts money into university scientific start-ups. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.