Emirati billionaire and Trump ally sees more Gulf investment in US under new president Reuters
Author: Federico Maccioni
DUBAI (Reuters) – Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani said on Friday he expected more investment from the oil-rich Gulf into the U.S. as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s second term heralds a “pro-business” climate.
The real estate tycoon and longtime Trump business partner announced this week at the president-elect’s Florida resort Mar-a-Lago that he plans to invest $20 billion in data centers in eight US states in the coming years.
Sajwani, whose Dubai-based real estate company DAMAC Properties owns the only Trump-branded golf course in the Middle East, made the announcement alongside Trump, who has pledged to speed up regulatory processes for such large-scale investments.
“I think his overall policy is pro-business,” Sajwani told Reuters at his home on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah island.
Those policies would encourage others to invest in the U.S. in the coming years, he said, adding that there are significant opportunities in artificial intelligence and other technology.
Sajwani, who made much of his fortune building residential neighborhoods and apartment buildings in Dubai, is an investor in Elon Musk’s SpaceX and artificial intelligence company xAI.
The Emirati tycoon celebrated the New Year with Trump and Musk and other guests at the Mar-a-Lago resort and said he had been invited to attend the inauguration in Washington on January 20.
Forbes estimates Sajwani’s net worth at $5.1 billion.
Trump and his family have business ties to the Gulf beyond their longstanding partnership with Sajwani. Trump-branded real estate projects are being built under partnership agreements in Saudi Arabia and Oman, while Gulf sovereign wealth funds are investors in an investment firm owned by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Gulf sovereign funds are also big US investors.
AI RACE
The United Arab Emirates is racing to become a leader in artificial intelligence amid increasing competition in the region as Qatar and Saudi Arabia also invest heavily in the technology and position themselves as potential global AI hubs.
Sajwani’s data center investment is carried out by DAMAC’s subsidiary EDGNEX, which operates and builds data centers in the Middle East, Asia and Europe.
EDGNEX plans to build and own data centers totaling 2,000 megawatts over the next four years in Texas, Arizona, Illinois and five other Sunbelt and Midwest states.
Sajwani cited access to land, energy and “more business-friendly approvals” as reasons why centers would be built there and said most of the investment would be financed through debt.
DAMAC, which plans to finance 60%-70% of the investment through debt, is working with global banks and will offer data centers under construction as collateral.
The remaining 30% will come from DAMAC Properties’ balance sheet, drawing on funds the company received while delivering real estate projects launched a few years ago.
“So the company’s balance sheet is strong enough to fund the next four years. And of course, all these things have been carefully studied and a very detailed business plan has been made,” he said.
The deal is likely to come under scrutiny from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a panel that scrutinizes foreign investments due to national security concerns.
Some Gulf officials privately complain about the length of time it takes an interagency panel to review such deals.
Sajwani said the deal would go through a “normal process” but that he expected the new administration to “facilitate” regulatory processes and “make it a little faster.”
“We know from the government’s overall policy that (it) will be more encouraging for foreign investment.”
(1 USD = 3.6727 UAE Dirhams)
