Racing-mad chameleon who’s lost his biggest gamble
Poet. Country squire. Friend of the Queen. But there was one thing even a mega-rich ruler couldn’t buy...
Shadow grew over splendour and generosity
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and prime minister of the United Arab emirates, is a man of means. Some even suggest he is the richest man in the world.
Certainly he is in possession of several public personas.
Clad in traditional Arab robes and keffiyeh, he presents himself as the potentate of a tiny desert kingdom. Then there is the Savile Row-suited visionary who has built a 21st century city of skyscrapers not so much on sand as superlatives.
in his tweeds, whether it be on the gallops at Newmarket or his vast Scottish shooting estate, the sheikh is every inch the sophisticated european country gentleman. he is a friend of our Queen, with whom he shares a passion for expensive horse flesh.
he is a prolific, self-published poet. he is a philanthropist without equal. he wants to send an emirati spaceship to Mars.
But yesterday’s sensational evidence from a London courtroom has suggested another and altogether less flattering version of this royal chameleon – the autocratic if not abusive husband of six wives and father of more than 20 children.
For all his estimated fortune of up to £14billion, Sheikh Mohammed has been reminded – once again – that one thing you cannot buy is a good reputation.
how badly the latest allegations of the sheikh’s authoritarian approach to family life will damage his long and mutually beneficial relationship with the United kingdom remains to be seen.
he has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in property and business interests here. he has also given huge amounts to good causes. Such figures are a measure of how far he has come from when he was a little boy, racing bareback on horses along the beach next to a Gulf fishing village called Jumeirah.
When he was born in 1949, Dubai was still a British protectorate. he was the third son of Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed alMaktoum, Dubai’s ruler from 1958 until his death in 1990.
During his father’s reign the emirate was gradually modernised. This process was accelerated when in 1966 oil was discovered. Dubai began to boom. in 1968 the British withdrew from ‘east of Suez’ and the United Arab emirates which included Dubai, emerged three years later.
Like many male children of Gulf rulers Sheikh Mohammed was sent to Britain for part of his education. At the age of 17 he attended the Bell educational Trust’s school in Cambridge.
Newmarket, that mecca of the horse racing world, was only a few miles away. A love affair was kindled which would eventually see the establishment of his Godolphin racing empire in the town.
in his autobiography Sheikh Mohammed recalled a frugal student existence: ‘i used to eat chicken only once a week and skip lunches at times to buy coffee for my friends or, most importantly, purchase a train ticket so i could go to watch the horse races that i love.’
he then attended the Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot (which was closed in 1972 and its responsibilities transferred to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst) and passed out with the sword of honour for the best foreign student.
After pilot training in italy he returned to the Gulf and was made head of both the police and the local defence force. When the UAe was formed he became its first Minister of Defence. his interest in
aviation saw the launch of Emirates airways in 1985 – now one of the biggest airlines in the world.
In 1995 he was made Crown Prince and de facto ruler, succeeding his brother Maktoum to the throne in 2006.
By then the economic miracle that is the modern Dubai was well under way. It had taken shape under his own auspices – and tight control. If Dubai was to outlive its reliance on oil and become the business and leisure hub of the Gulf, if not the whole of the Middle East, it would have to be noticed. Sheikh Mohammed achieved this with a number of spectacular projects.
There was the sail-shaped hotel Burj Al Arab, off the same Jumeirah beach where he once raced horses, described as the world’s most luxurious.
In 2010 he opened the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. The sheikh relaxed visa rules for educated Western expats and allowed the consumption of alcohol in the many resorts and hotels. This was no Saudi Arabia.
As the majority shareholder of Dubai Holding – the emirate’s investment vehicle – much of the income from these ventures flowed into his own coffers. He and his three brothers are said to each make $1million (£770,000) a day from its oil wealth alone.
And a considerable chunk has been invested in his lavish life in the UK. He bought the Longcross estate near Chertsey in Surrey several decades ago. It is now thought to be worth around £75million.
He also owns the 63,000-acre, 30-bedroom Inverinate estate in Wester Ross and an £85million townhouse in Kensington, west London. The portfolio includes racing operations in Ireland, the US and Australia, a £385million 500ft superyacht, a fleet of private jets, including at lest one Boeing 747, and more than 100 supercars.
Not all was conspicuous consumption. In 2007 Sheikh Mohammed announced what was then perhaps the biggest philanthropic donation in history. He would give $10billion (£7.7billion) to set up an educational foundation named after himself. On a smaller scale, in 2017 he gave the Cornish village of Godolphin Cross £100,000 to buy a community hall. Yet a shadow had begun to grow over this splendour, generosity and – along the tourist beaches of Dubai – superficial hedonism.
A series of human rights scandals have rocked Dubai and the UAE. Homosexuality is still illegal and punished with severity.
Free speech is limited and some 250,000 migrant unskilled workers are said to live in conditions which are less than humane. The UAE has also been a major participant in the brutal war in Yemen which has killed thousands of civilians. Campaign group Human Rights Watch says any attempt to paint the UAE government as tolerant is ‘laughable’. Society is patriarchal to the point of oppression.
Yesterday’s decision by a London court lifted the veil.
For the ‘world’s richest man’, such scrutiny is bad business.