Rishi Sunak will become Britain's prime minister after other candidates withdrew from the race for the Conservative Party leadership, Reuters reports.

King Charles the Third will ask Sunak, one of Westminster's wealthiest politicians, to form the government, replacing Liz Truss, the outgoing leader who lasted only 44 days in office.

Sunak defeated centrist politician Penny Mordaunt, who could not get enough support from lawmakers to get on the ballot, while his rival, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, declined to run.

Sunak, a 42-year-old former finance minister, becomes the third British prime minister in less than two months charged with restoring stability to a country that has endured years of political and economic turmoil.

The multimillionaire former hedge fund chief is expected to begin making drastic spending cuts to try to restore Britain's financial reputation, just as the country is sliding into a recession caused by rising energy and food prices.

Britain has been in permanent crisis since it voted to leave the European Union in 2016, unleashing a battle in Westminster over the country's future that still remains unresolved.

Sunak gained national attention when, at age 39, he became finance minister under Johnson just as the COVID-19 pandemic struck Britain, devising a successful firing scheme.

The former Goldman Sachs analyst would become Britain's first prime minister of Indian origin.

His family emigrated to Britain in the 1960s. After graduating from Oxford University, he went to Stanford University, where he met his wife, Akshata Murthy, whose father is Indian billionaire N. R. Narayana Murthy, founder of outsourcing giant Infosys Ltd.