Sir James Dyson (2 May 1947) is a British inventor, industrial design engineer and founder of the Dyson company. He was known for being the inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner, which is based on the cyclonic separation principle. According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2020, his net worth is £16.2 billion.
He held a senior position at the Royal College of Art from August 2011 to July 2017, and opened a new college at the Wiltshire Dyson Campus in September 2017.
Dyson was one of the most prominent British business leaders to publicly support Brexit ahead of the referendum in June 2016. Since then, Dyson has claimed that Britain should leave the single market and that this would "free up" the 'economy and would allow the UK to sign its own trade deals around the world.
In 2016, 19% of Dyson's exports went to EU countries (at WTO rates), compared with 81% to non-EU countries. In 2017, Dyson suggested that the UK should leave the EU without a deal and that "uncertainty is opportunity". He had previously said in 2014 that he would vote to leave the EU to avoid being "dominated and bullied by the Germans". In November 2017, Dyson criticized the UK government's Brexit negotiations, saying "we should go and they will come". After it became public in January 2019 that his company had moved its headquarters from Malmesbury to Singapore he was accused of hypocrisy.