When President-elect Donald J. Trump called Hussain Sajwani to the podium at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday to pledge a $20 billion investment in the United States, it was a moment for the Dubai developer to savor. For more than a decade, his company, DAMAC Properties, has helped generate millions for the Trump Organization through partnerships in the Middle East.
Those connections appear to have helped open up a broad window of opportunity for Mr. Sajwani as he moves to diversify his empire into the multibillion-dollar market of building data centers needed to meet rapidly growing demands for cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
“For the last four years, we have been waiting for this moment,” said Mr. Sajwani on stage. “We’re very, very excited right now with his leadership and his open strategy and policy to encourage businesses to come to the U.S.”
The announcement deepens Mr Trump’s ties to Mr Sajwani. But it also highlights what critics say are conflicts of interest as Mr. Trump continues to hold on to his real estate business as he prepares for a second term in the White House.
What does DAMAC do?
DAMAC Properties is part of the DAMAC Group, one of the largest developers in Dubai, a city in the United Arab Emirates known for its largest real estate projects, such as a palm-shaped island and Burj Khalifa, the tallest skyscraper high in the world.
Mr Sajwani, who is sometimes referred to as the Donald of Dubai, built his company into a major player in the luxury real estate market in the Middle East with acquisitions and projects that began in the mid-1990s, when Dubai began to allowed foreigners to buy property there.
In 2002, he founded DAMAC Properties to build luxury towers along Dubai’s waterfront that quickly sold out. Mr. Sajwani signed brand deals with Versace, Fendi and other fashion houses for his properties.
But the company also faced lawsuits in 2010, including one from a German investor who claimed some properties were not delivered on time. This lawsuit was rejected by a court in Dubai. In 2011, DAMAC settled three disputes with Egypt over investments there, including one in which a Cairo court had convicted Mr. Sajwani jailed in absentia.
On its website, the company promotes luxury villas, apartments and hotels from Saudi Arabia to London. During his remarks at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, Mr. Sajwani said DAMAC had delivered 47,000 houses and had another 33,000 in the pipeline.
DAMAC said in a press release Tuesday that it was also planning an apartment project in Miami worth about $1 billion and that it “continues to seek strategic real estate opportunities in the US.”
What is DAMAC’s connection to Mr. Trump?
In 2013, Mr. Sajwani teamed up with the Trump family to build the first Trump-branded golf course in the Middle East. Mr. Trump agreed to manage a golf course as part of a DAMAC development.
Under the agreements, the Trump Organization licenses the Trump name to DAMAC, which paid Mr. Trump $2 million to $10 million even before the golf courses were built, according to financial disclosure forms filed in May 2016. In 2017, Mr. Trump won $141,433 in management fees from the deals, according to his financial disclosure from that year.
Trump International Golf Club opened in 2017, during Mr Trump’s first term, and is the centerpiece of DAMAC Hills, a gated complex of luxury homes selling for up to $4 million each.
A second Trump-linked golf course that DAMAC intended to build inside a resort has been delayed. The project gained attention in 2018 when DAMAC tapped a company controlled by the Chinese government to build part of it.
Mr. Trump’s sons, Donald Jr. and Eric attended Mr. Sajwani’s daughter’s wedding in 2018, and during Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Sajwani was a familiar face at Mar-a-Lago. Last week, he attended a New Year’s party, posting on X a photo of himself next to Mr Trump and Elon Musk.
Why is DAMAC investing in US data centers?
If Mr. Trump has benefited greatly from his relationship with DAMAC, Mr. Sajwani will benefit from his years-long investment in the president-elect.
In 2021, Mr. Sajwani set up a digital unit, Edgnex Data Centres, a subsidiary of DAMAC, to meet the growing global demand for data centres.
Edgnex has been looking to expand rapidly in the Middle East, Asia and Europe, and has operations in 10 countries, including Saudi Arabia, which has trained its sights on becoming a dominant player in AI.
North America has been a blank spot in Edgnex’s portfolio – until Mr Trump’s announcement that Mr Sajwani would pour “at least” $20 billion into the United States.
Edgnex said it will develop data centers in eight states, including Texas and Indiana, and is aiming to build data processing capacity that could eclipse projects built by Microsoft and Amazon.
Mr. Trump said he would use government powers once in office to give DAMAC “expedited reviews” of any federal environmental issues that might arise, a benefit Mr. Trump added would be offered to any company that plans to invest $1 billion in the United States. the states.
