Saudi Billionaire Sinks $300 Million in Twitter
Twitter has just received $300 million in funding from Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and his investment company Kingdom Holding Company (KHC).
The Saudi billionaire, a nephew of the Saudi king Abdullah, is estimated to have a net worth of about $19.6 billion. Forbes recently listed him as the wealthiest Saudi Arabian and as the 26th richest individual in the world.
"We believe that social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years. Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend," said Ahmed Halawani, KHC's executive director of private equity and international investments, in a statement provided to Associated Press. Twitter confirmed the investment, but did not provide details how the money will be used. The cash, however, should support Twitter on its path to increase advertising revenues. eMarketer estimates that Twitter will see about $140 million in ad revenue this year and $260 million in 2012.
Al-Waleed also owns 14.9 percent of the shares of Citicorp and is known to hold significant shares of AOL, Apple, Motorola, and Fox News. Earlier this year he signed a deal to build the Kingdom tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to become the next tallest building in the world with an estimated height of at least 3300 feet.
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I would not mind having $300 million.
Damn oil princes...
This is a good idea, let's start letting the money control the internet media as well. Maybe we can use it to sway the popular opinion on wars that will make the rich richer and then we can start censoring people, and spying on what they do, then we can strip away what little freedoms they enjoy in exchange for what they are fed: bullshit.
Great idea.
??tallest building, waste of time and energy...
How about building schools and universities, instead? Or solar panels on every roof in the world?
Didn't somebody tell him you don't have to pay to use Twitter?
dunno why the writer of this article made it look like its a "Donation"
the fact is that this saudi guy "Al-Waleed bin Talal" bought 3.75% share in twitter for $300 mil.
Ironic really, given the Arab uprising and the crackdown on social media.
If the Saudi's didn't throw money at the governance problem, would they hold social media in such a light?
??tallest building, waste of time and energy...How about building schools and universities, instead? Or solar panels on every roof in the world?
in his neighbouring country Egypt (where I live) universities teach crap loads of waste, thousands of students who can barely listen to one professor or even sit on the floor suffer from bad professors, corrupt systems, no equipment, everything is bad, instead of paying 300M to twitter he sould pay them to us, i'd love to know why only suckers who only care about themselves are billionaris
Now women must have male guardians before they can tweet.
Like investing $100 for "regular" people.....
About the complaining poeple, Its his money so he gets to decide what to do with it.
Sinking it down the drain?
how would he make money giving away solar panels or donating money to school?
why would he make money, he already has what would make him, his children , his grand children, and his great grand children happy for their lives??
he can make others happy too who aren't as wealthy
About the complaining poeple, Its his money so he gets to decide what to do with it.
how is it his, it's oil money, it's not his, it would be his if he had worked to get it but he didn't he just found some oil near his tent and sold it to some oil company for those billions, the natural resources aren't anybodys property, except if you're in a kingdom of course
i'd love to know why only suckers who only care about themselves are billionaris
Nicolas Berggruen, BIll Gates, Jeff Skoll, Jon M. Huntsman Sr., Warren Buffett to name of few give away HUGE amounts of their money (Buffett pledging to give away about 99% of his wealth) to charities, grants and scholarships amongst other things. Not only self centered people are billionaires, it's just that the ones you are exposed too are the ones who want to keep it all, the ones who give it all away tend to not want the spotlight or aren't controversial enough for the media.
how is it his, it's oil money, it's not his, it would be his if he had worked to get it but he didn't he just found some oil near his tent and sold it to some oil company for those billions, the natural resources aren't anybodys property, except if you're in a kingdom of course
The fact that he is making money off that oil shows it is property and his does it not?
Geez another Billionaire that has no life. What he going to do twitter all day?
It would have been better if he invested his money in AMD R&D and compete with Intel.
Nicolas Berggruen, BIll Gates, Jeff Skoll, Jon M. Huntsman Sr., Warren Buffett to name of few give away HUGE amounts of their money (Buffett pledging to give away about 99% of his wealth) to charities, grants and scholarships amongst other things. Not only self centered people are billionaires, it's just that the ones you are exposed too are the ones who want to keep it all, the ones who give it all away tend to not want the spotlight or aren't controversial enough for the media.
i guess you're right, i'm saying that alwalid dod no effort to get that money
otheres actually did work to get that money, like bill gates and others
The fact that he is making money off that oil shows it is property and his does it not?
it shouldn't be his, it should be the country's
Geez another Billionaire that has no life. What he going to do twitter all day?It would have been better if he invested his money in AMD R&D and compete with Intel.
most of the guys who did no effort to get their money are clueless, and they are only self-centered, they don't care about competition, they can afford expensive processors
how is it his, it's oil money, it's not his, it would be his if he had worked to get it but he didn't he just found some oil near his tent and sold it to some oil company for those billions, the natural resources aren't anybodys property, except if you're in a kingdom of course
It's good to be the king. (or at least related to him)
It's good to be the king. (or at least related to him)
Until your people really had enough of you -and your family- and then things can turn ugly rather quickly. See Libya etc. :-)
How about feed the hunger first, rich prince?
Thanks for keeping the service alive