Chivayo dropped out of high school aged 15 because his family could no longer afford the fees after his father died when he was 10.
His first job was as a wages clerk for a bus company. From there, he moved into his first independent hustle – selling mobile phones and dealing in foreign currency, often on the black market at the height of the country’s hyperinflation crisis.
In 2005, he was sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering involving 837,000 South African rand (then worth $137,500, £72,000). He served three years at Chikurubi Maximum Prison after two years were suspended.
Details of his career following his release are murky, but he went into the energy business, becoming what one state-run newspaper described as a “tenderpreneur” -making money by getting government contracts.
He headed the firm Intratrek Zimbabwe, which partnered with Chinese electrical giant CHiNT Electric. This was at a time when legislation required all companies in the country to cede economic control to black Zimbabweans, under a policy known as indigenisation.
In 2014, Intratrek was selected to build a 100MW solar power station in the southern town of Gwanda. A contract worth more than $170m was signed the following year. It became one of the biggest controversies of Chivayo’s business career.
Zimbabwe Power Company, the state-owned utility that awarded the contract, sought to terminate it when Intratrek failed to deliver, but the courts ultimately ruled that the agreement remained valid.
A parliamentary inquiry later described Intratrek as a “briefcase company” being used as a front to attract investment.
Chivayo acknowledged that Intratrek lacked expertise in solar construction, describing it as the local partner while CHiNT provided the technical muscle.
Intratrek received an advance of more than $5m for the Gwanda solar plant, but it remains unbuilt to this day.
Just weeks before Chivayo’s death, Intratrek received a government notice to proceed with the project and was given 24 months to complete it.
As the accusations flew, the businessman just smiled and sweet-talked his way through the maelstrom – even winning over President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was initially unimpressed by him when he first came to power.
In 2018, Mnangagwa cited Gwanda as a lesson in the dangers of doing business with “fly-by-night briefcase businessmen”, adding ominously that “Chikurubi is not full”. The state-run Herald newspaper reported that the warning was directed at Chivayo.
Yet within a few years, that relationship transformed into a bromance. In one of several photographs capturing the remarkable informality between them, Chivayo lounges, almost lying, on a sofa beside Mnangagwa, apparently entirely at ease in the president’s company.
His access was not confined to Zanu-PF – he also posted photographs with opposition figures, including the late Morgan Tsvangirai and Nelson Chamisa.
But he became a conspicuous presence around Mnangagwa, speaking glowingly of the president and making no secret of his support for Zanu-PF.
He faced allegations over the procurement of materials for the 2023 elections, in which Mnangagwa was voted in for a second term.
Investigations alleged that South African supplier Ren-Form grossly inflated prices and subsequently paid hundreds of millions of rand to a company linked to him. Chivayo denied wrongdoing, and Zimbabwe’s anti-corruption commission later said it had found no evidence linking him to procurement fraud. Ren-Form denied any wrongdoing.
In April, he offered the country’s 360 legislators $10,000 each, prompting accusations that he wanted to influence an impending vote on a controversial constitutional amendment to extend what would have been Mnangagwa’s final five-year term by two years to 2030.
He was forced to withdraw the offer following a backlash and denied it was intended to influence the vote.
When the legislation was signed into law several months later, Zanu-PF posted a video clip of him with the caption, external: “Billionaire Sir Wicknell Chivayo celebrates… singing ‘2030 Ndeya Emmerson Baba!’ while cruising at 51,000 feet aboard his Gulfstream G550”.