On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump revealed that an Emirati company, run by billionaire Hussain Sajwani, a close business partner of the Trump family, will spend $20 billion in data centers in the United States.
DAMAC Properties’ investment in the United Arab Emirates demonstrates Trump’s capacity to secure fresh funding for significant undertakings. The statement comes after Japanese billionaire businessman Masayoshi Son promised to invest $100 billion in the US last month while he was with Trump.
Trump said at a news conference that he believed Sajwani committed because “he was very inspired by the election and wouldn’t do it without the election.” The president-elect emphasized his plans to get investments of $1 billion or more through the environmental regulatory review process quickly.
Following Trump, Sajwani briefly joined the news conference and said: “It’s been amazing news for me and my family when he was elected in November.”
Sajwani’s pledged investment supports the current boom in building data centers for the advancement of artificial intelligence, the growth of cryptocurrencies, and other aspects of an increasingly digital economy that depends on stronger computer processing power sources.
Given the already large investment in new data centers, the $20 billion promise is also an indication that affluent investors close to Trump can benefit from that relationship, even though Trump has attempted to present these announcements as a source of renewed vigor in the American economy.
The financial firm Blackstone predicted in October that over the next five years, $1 trillion would be invested in data centers in the United States, with an additional $1 trillion going outside. Sajwani’s pledge might only account for 2% of the anticipated total amount of domestic investment in the industry.
Data centers in the US, which have not yet been included in his company’s EDGNEX data center portfolio, would be acquired by Sajwani. The company’s website states that it now operates data centers in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Spain, Thailand, and Indonesia, or aims to do so.
One of the leading private developers in the United Arab Emirates’ skyscraper-filled city-state is DAMAC Properties.
Trump has partnered with the real estate developer. Shortly before Trump took office, DAMAC constructed the Trump International Golf Club at a large development in the desert outskirts of the city under Sajwani.
In keeping with a trend the president-elect’s business has employed in both domestic and international affairs, DAMAC also returned millions of dollars in licensing fees to the Trump Organization.
A Trump-named golf course had been planned for another DAMAC development farther out in the desert. Plans for the golf course in the property were later abandoned by DAMAC, nevertheless. Additionally, after Trump’s first election victory in 2016, talks for a $2 billion contract between DAMAC and the Trump Organization never came to reality.
According to Sajwani, Trump’s first election as president raised awareness of his business.
Sajwani has been spotted at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida since his reelection in November. He shared a photo of himself at a New Year’s Eve celebration, standing between billionaire Elon Musk and a seated Trump.
But since then, the Trump Organization has been working with Dar Global, a Saudi-funded real estate company that is constructing Trump buildings in Saudi Arabia and a golf course bearing the Trump name in Oman.
Although earlier plans for a Trump Tower on Dubai’s artificial Palm Jumeirah archipelago collapsed amid the city’s 2008 financial crisis, there are proposals for a Trump Tower in Dubai as well.
