TWEET FOR YOUR LIFE
November 6, 2022 -Durt Fibo

Eight bucks, blue checks, and bone saws must be weaving wild dances in Elon Musk’s febrile dreams. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia is the second largest Twitter shareholder after Musk, via Alwaleed’s investment company, Kingdom Holding. Regulatory and stock exchange filings show Kingdom Holding invested $500 million in the Russian companies Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil (in global and U.S. depository receipts) between February and March of 2022, just as the Russian army was attacking Ukraine.

In 2017, Alwaleed was one of the nearly 400 Saudi princes, ministers and business moguls imprisoned by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh’s Ritz Carlton hotel for several months and extorted under threats and later claims of actual torture. At the end of Alwaleed’s ordeal, 17% of Kingdom Holding was nabbed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, which is run by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. (Yes, that prince: “We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.” -Avril D. Haines, Director of (USA) National Intelligence). The Public Investment Fund is the same entity which gave Jared Kushner $2 billion a mere six months after he evacuated the White House. Advertising revenues might be a lesser concern than overall intent and probity once Musk quiets down.