In 2016, when Donald Trump was elected for the first time, Hussain Sajwani made certain that he was known as the president-elect’s man in the Middle East. The billionaire, head of the DAMAC Group, described himself in press releases as “Trump’s Middle Eastern business partner.”
Back in the Spotlight
Since the reelection of Donald Trump, Sajwani has returned to center stage in media attention. The billionaire celebrated the New Year at Mar-a-Lago with Trump. The 71-year-old developer appears eager to capitalize on his relationship with Trump, which began over a decade ago. The two previously partnered on luxury golf courses in Dubai. DAMAC Group owns the only Trump-branded golf course in Dubai, which opened in 2017.
On January 7, the billionaire stood beside President-elect Trump at a press conference at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and promised to invest at least $20 billion to build new data centers across the United States, from Arizona to Ohio.
Trump called his business partner “one of the most respected business leaders in the Middle East, indeed the world.”
Sajwani’s net worth has increased to about $13 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, but it is unclear how he will finance such a large undertaking.
“The investment will support massive new data centers across the Midwest, the Sun Belt area, and also to keep America on the cutting edge of technology and artificial intelligence,” President-elect Trump said at the press conference.
Sajwani vowed that his company would invest more than $20 billion “if the opportunity, the market, allow us.”
“They may go double, or even somewhat more than double, that amount of money,” Trump said of Sajwani’s company the DAMAC Group.
Sajwani’s DAMAC is a privately held company that started by focusing on luxury real estate in Dubai. In recent years it has been pushing into other parts of the world.
“It’s been amazing news for me and my family when [Trump] was elected in November. We’ve been waiting four years to increase our investment in [the] U.S. to very large amounts of money,” said Sajwani in brief remarks at the press conference.
According to President-elect Trump, the deal’s first phase would include Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Texas. He also asserted that it is critical to keep the United States competitive in emerging technologies. The president-elect vowed to help move the project swiftly through the environmental and permitting process. He also boasted that the project was the direct result of his recent election victory.
Foreign Investments in the United States
Domestic and foreign business leaders have traveled to Mar-a-Lago to visit Trump before he takes the oath of office on January 20th. Many have also been donating to his inauguration fund.
In December, President-elect Trump announced during another press conference a major investment pledge from SoftBank Group Corp. With the company’s chief executive officer, Masayoshi Son, at his side, he said the Japanese multinational investment holding company will invest $100 billion in the United States over the next four years and create 100,000 jobs.
Throughout Trump’s presidential campaign, he threatened to use tariffs and tax policy to push foreign companies to invest in the United States. Recently, the president-elect refuted a Washington Post report that his team is contemplating scaling back on plans for trade levies and instead focusing on specific critical imports with targeted tariffs.
The DAMAC Group’s investment in the United States is just one part of a larger foray into the booming data centers business. Over the next three to five years, Edgnex Data Centers, a unit of the Dubai-based conglomerate, intends to invest $3 billion in building data centers in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.
