Vajiralongkorn

• 1. Introduction

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  Vajiralongkorn, also known by his regnal name Rama X, became King of Thailand at the age of 64, the oldest person ever to take that throne. He is the tenth monarch of the Chakri dynasty, which has ruled the country since 1782. He is also described as the wealthiest monarch in the world, with an estimated fortune somewhere between 30 billion and 70 billion US dollars. That is a wide range, and it hints at how little of his world is open to public view. He is the only son of a king who was revered for decades, and he inherited both the throne and the comparison. How did a prince trained as a soldier, pilot and lawyer prepare for the role? Why does a Thai king spend most of his time in Bavaria? And why do the laws around him make it risky to even ask?

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• 2. A Prince in Uniform

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  In 1956, the young prince began school at the Chitralada School inside Dusit Palace in Bangkok. After the seventh grade, he was sent to the United Kingdom, first to King's Mead prep school in Seaford, Sussex, and then to Millfield School in Somerset. He finished his secondary education there in July 1970. The following month, he took a five-week military course at The King's School in Sydney, Australia.

  In 1972, he enrolled at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in Canberra. The course had two halves. The Australian Army handled the military training, while the University of New South Wales oversaw a bachelor's degree. He graduated in 1976 as a new lieutenant with a liberal arts degree in military studies. That same year, he trained with the Special Air Service Regiment in Perth.

  A second degree came later, in law, at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University in 1982. He earned second-class honors. By then his army career in Thailand was well underway, and its early postings point to a path through intelligence and infantry command.

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• 3. The Army and the Sky

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  After his studies, Vajiralongkorn started as a staff officer in the Directorate of Army Intelligence. In 1977 he attended the Command and General Staff College. A year later he became Deputy Commander of the King Chulalongkorn's Own Guards, the 4th Infantry Battalion of the 1st Infantry Regiment, and in 1980 he took command of that battalion. In 1992 he became Commander of the Royal Security Command.

  He is also a qualified military pilot. The aircraft he is cleared to fly include the Northrop F-5, the F-16 and the Boeing 737-400. In recent years his military role has become mostly ceremonial.

  The ranks kept climbing regardless. In July 1987 he was made Major General, Rear Admiral and Air Vice-Marshal at once, across all three services. By January 1992 he held the top ranks of General, Admiral and Air Chief Marshal. On the 3rd of December 2024 he was named Field Marshal.

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• 4. Hospitals, Farms and Degrees

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  Crown Prince Hospitals were set up in 21 locations in 1977, funded by public donations to bring medical care to people in remote areas. By 2011 they had grown into major community hospitals offering services of international standard to the general public.

  Farmers have also been a steady concern. Under his patronage, the Mobile Agricultural Clinic Project sends teams of experts to advise on plants, livestock, fisheries and land development. The teams can move quickly to wherever help is needed. When his father grew older, Vajiralongkorn presided over the annual Royal Ploughing Ceremony on the king's behalf, and he has continued to do so in his own right. To mark his coronation, the Rice Department released five new rice cultivars. He also continues the royal rice varieties competition, a tradition begun by his ancestor Chulalongkorn.

  Universities are another thread. Thailand has a system of 40 Rajabhat universities, and the chairman of their presidents' council says Vajiralongkorn has handed out degrees personally to graduates every year since 1978. One estimate puts the total at no fewer than 2,100,000 degrees over 35 years. He also donates 42 million baht each year to a scholarship fund for Rajabhat students.

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• 5. The Football Prince

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  At about age 11, Vajiralongkorn learned to ride horses, and he soon became a capable rider. At school he played football, rugby and rowing alongside friends, both in Thailand and abroad. In football he began as a forward and later moved to center-back, at the Chitralada School, at Millfield, and at Duntroon. Thais once called him the Football Prince, though he is now better known for his involvement in cycling.

  Sailing was a family affair. He raced with his father, King Bhumibol, and his sister Princess Ubolratana when they stayed at Klai Kangwon Palace in Hua Hin. Football was one passion he shared with his father.

  A more solemn chapter came on the 6th of November 1978. At age 26 he was ordained as a monk at Wat Phra Kaew, taking the monastic name Vajiralongkornno. As royal tradition requires, he then stayed 15 days at Wat Bowonniwet Vihara.

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• 6. Crown and Constitution

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  On the 13th of October 2016, King Bhumibol died. Under the 2007 Constitution, the cabinet had told the president of the National Assembly to invite his son to take the throne. Vajiralongkorn asked for time to mourn first. On the night of the 1st of December 2016, the fiftieth day after his father's death, Regent Prem Tinsulanonda led the heads of the three branches of government to invite him to ascend. He accepted in a televised statement, saying he did so "to fulfill his majesty's wishes and for the benefit of all Thais." The government then declared his reign to have begun on the day his father died. His father's remains were cremated on the 26th of October 2017.

  Meanwhile, a draft constitution was moving through the system. In January 2017, Thailand's military-appointed parliament voted overwhelmingly to allow changes to it at the new king's request. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said the king's office had asked for several changes to clauses on royal power, a rare intervention by a reigning Thai monarch. Critics argued the document would give the military a strong political voice for years or even decades. Vajiralongkorn endorsed the 2017 Constitution on the 6th of April 2017, Chakri day.

  He also reshaped the privy council. After the councillors to his father resigned, he appointed 10 members, among them Surayud Chulanont, and he re-appointed Prem Tinsulanonda as its president.

  In February 2019, his elder sister Ubol Ratana announced she would run for prime minister, as a candidate of the Thai Raksa Chart Party. Hours later, the king issued a strongly worded statement calling her candidacy "inappropriate... and unconstitutional". The Election Commission disqualified her. On the 7th of March 2019, the Constitutional Court dissolved her party and banned its political leaders from politics for a decade. The source notes that he holds direct control over the royal household and the palace security agencies.

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• 7. A King in Bavaria

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  The German foreign ministry told the Thai ambassador more than once that Germany did not welcome "guests in our country who run their state affairs from here." The reason was simple. Vajiralongkorn spends most of his time in Bavaria, where he has lived for much of his adult life, and where his son Dipangkorn Rasmijoti attends school. As king, he asked for and received constitutional changes ending the requirement to appoint a regent when he is abroad. Thai officials answered that the prime minister handled government business and that the king was in Germany for personal reasons.

  For most of 2020, he reportedly rented the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in Garmisch-Partenkirchen for himself and his entourage during the COVID-19 pandemic. The stay overlapped with widespread protests against his rule in Thailand, which drew attention at home and abroad. German foreign minister Heiko Maas warned him not to govern from German soil. On the 26th of October 2020, protesters marched to the German Embassy in Bangkok to ask Germany to investigate.

  Money followed him there too. In August 2011, German authorities in Munich impounded a Boeing 737, one of two belonging to him, over a 20-year-old Thai government debt of about 30 million euros tied to the Don Mueang Tollway. His office announced he would pay a 20 million euro deposit himself. In November 2016, Manager Magazin reported that he might face an inheritance tax bill above 3.5 billion euros, because he owns two villas in Bavaria.

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• 8. Pageantry and Protest

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  Sanam Luang, the ceremonial ground in Bangkok, hosted the crowds when the coronation finally came. It ran from the 4th to the 6th of May 2019, cost one billion baht, or about 29.8 million US dollars, and was expected to draw 150,000 people. It did.

  The reign has also drawn criticism that the source describes as unheard of under his father. Protests in 2020 against his rule were widespread and unprecedented. On the 12th of November 2025, he arrived in Beijing on the first visit to China by a Thai monarch.

  Thailand's lese majesty law is among the most strictly enforced in the world. Criticism of the king, queen and crown prince is prohibited, and so, more recently, is criticism of former kings, royal family members and even their pets. Violations carry large fines and prison sentences of up to 35 years.

  The press has felt it. A Far Eastern Economic Review article of the 10th of January 2002 suggested business ties between Vajiralongkorn and then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Distribution of the magazine was banned immediately. Citing national security, the government suspended the visas of its two Thailand correspondents, Shawn Crispin and Rodney Tasker. The Economist wrote in 2002 that he was held in much less esteem than his father, and that issue was banned in Thailand. Another 2010 issue called him "widely loathed and feared" and "unpredictable to the point of eccentricity". The online journal Asia Sentinel described him as "regarded as erratic and virtually incapable of ruling" and was blocked soon afterward.

  Individuals have paid too. On the 19th of January 2009, Australian Harry Nicolaides was sentenced to three years in prison for a self-published novel that contained a passage about royal rumors. He said later that the book was "entirely fiction from cover to cover". The king later pardoned him.

  In November 2009, a home video reached WikiLeaks. It showed a birthday celebration for the prince's poodle, Air Chief Marshal Fufu. Part of it aired on the Australian ABC program Foreign Correspondent on the 13th of April 2010. In May 2017, Thai officials warned Facebook after a video appeared of the king in a crop top, showing a half-sleeve tattoo.

  On the 3rd of January 1977, Vajiralongkorn married Princess Soamsawali Kitiyakara, a first cousin on his mother's side. Their daughter, Princess Bajrakitiyabha, was born in December 1978. By the late 1970s he was also living with the actress Yuvadhida Polpraserth, with whom he had five children. Soamsawali refused a divorce for years. He sued in the Family Court in January 1993 and blamed her entirely for the breakdown. She could not answer the charges because lese majesty prevented her from doing so. The divorce was finalized in July 1993.

  Yuvadhida gave birth to their first son, Prince Juthavachara Mahidol, on the 29th of August 1979. They married at a palace ceremony in February 1994, blessed by the King and the Princess Mother but not by the Queen. She took the name Mom Sujarinee Mahidol na Ayudhaya and was commissioned as a major in the Royal Thai Army. In 1996 she left for Britain with her children, and posters accusing her of adultery appeared around his palace. He later brought their daughter back to Thailand. Sujarinee and her sons lost their diplomatic passports and royal titles, then moved to the United States.

  On the 10th of February 2001, he married Srirasmi Suwadee, a commoner who had been in his service since 1992. The marriage stayed secret until early 2005. Their son, Prince Dipangkorn Rasmijoti, was born on the 29th of April 2005. In November 2014, after allegations of corruption against seven of her relatives, he asked that her family lose the royal name Akharaphongpreecha. The next month she gave up her titles and the two divorced.

  On the 1st of May 2019, three days before the coronation, he married Suthida Tidjai, a former acting commander of the Royal Thai Aide-de-Camp Department. His sister Princess Sirindhorn and Prem Tinsulanonda witnessed the registration. Weeks later, on the 28th of July 2019, Major General Niramon Ounprom received the title Chao Khun Phra, or Royal Noble Consort, the first official naming of a secondary consort in nearly a century. On the 21st of October 2019, a palace order stripped her of that title and her ranks. On the 2nd of September 2020, her titles were restored, with a declaration that she "is not tarnished."

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