Alwaleed bin Talal aka Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud is a Saudi Arabian billionaire businessman, investor, philanthropist, and royal. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal appears to be the one attempting to prevent Elon Musk from purchasing Twitter. The Prince, a big stakeholder in Twitter, declined Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $41 billion bid to buy the company altogether. On Thursday, April 14, after entrepreneur Elon Musk made the offer, Prince Alwaleed tweeted his rejection of Musk’s proposal.
Who is Alwaleed bin Talal?
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was one of the wealthiest persons in the Middle East until 2017. He was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as the finance minister’s son and grandson of the country’s first monarch.
He had finished his post-secondary study in the United States. He also earned a master’s degree from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 1985. He was married for eight years to Princess Ameerah, but they split in 2013.
His riches are focused on his 95 percent ownership of Kingdom Holding Company, a holding company that invests in other businesses. He began investing in Twitter in 2013 and currently owns 5.2 percent of the company. He owns interests in Lyft, Citigroup, and top hotels like the George V in Paris, the Plaza in New York, and Twitter.
He was named one of Time magazine’s top 100 most influential persons in 2008. The millionaire has had a 435-room castle at one point in his life.
According to Forbes, in 2017, his net worth was $39.8 billion. The 282-foot Kingdom 5KR, which was featured in the James Bond film ‘Never Say Never Again,’ is owned by the Prince and is one of the world’s largest yachts.
He, on the other hand, suffered much as a result of a long battle with his cousin, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and almost lost everything. In 2017, he was detained on allegations of money laundering, bribery, and extortion, and the crown prince seized $2 billion in Saudi Arabian assets.
He also made an attempt to seize his overseas assets. He was allegedly targeted as part of a broad anti-corruption campaign in the country.
After being kept hostage for two months, the Prince was freed in January 2018 after reaching an undisclosed financial arrangement with the Saudi authorities. The amount he had to pay to be released is still unknown, but officials had earlier ordered him to pay at least $6 billion.
Who is Alwaleed bin Talal?
Alwaleed bin Talal was born on March 7, 1955, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He is 67 years old.
Who is Alwaleed bin Talal’s Wife?
Al Waleed has had four marriages. According to another account, he has been married seven times. At the age of 19, he married for the first time in 1976.
His first wife was his cousin, Dalal bint Saud, the daughter of King Saud. They divorced in December 1994 after having two children (Prince Khaled, born on April 21, 1978, and Princess Reem, born on June 20, 1982).
Al Waleed married Princess Iman Sudairi in 1996; however the marriage barely lasted about a year. Al Waleed married Kholood Al Anazi in 1999 after divorcing his second wife. In 2004, they divorced.
Ameera al-Taweel was his fourth wife, and they divorced in 2014 after around six years of marriage
How Rich is Alwaleed bin Talal?
The estimated Net Worth of Alwaleed bin Talal is between $35 Billion to $45 Billion USD.
(Image Source: NYPost, Reuters, LobeLog, SCMP)