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30 Israelis make Forbes 2022 billionaires list, led by Miriam Adelson

Luke Tress is an editor and a reporter in New York for The Times of Israel.

Thirty Israelis were listed on the Forbes 2022 billionaires list released on Wednesday, including tech entrepreneurs, shipping magnates and a Hollywood producer embroiled in Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial.

The highest-ranked Israeli was Miriam Adelson, listed as the 50th-richest person in the world with a net worth of $27.5 billion.

Adelson is from Israel, but Forbes placed her in the US in its annual ranking, since she holds American citizenship and lives in Las Vegas.

Adelson debuted on the list in 2021 after her husband, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, died early in the year. He was a mega-donor to the Republican party and the publisher of Israel Hayom.

Miriam Adelson inherited most of her late husband’s fortune and became the wealthiest new billionaire in the world last year, placing 24th on the Forbest list. She lost around $360 million in the past year.

Eyal Ofer, the head of Ofer Global Holdings, was the wealthiest person in Israel on the list, in 117th place with a fortune of $15.4 billion derived from assets in the real estate and shipping industries.

His brother, Idan Ofer, is the next richest Israeli, in 188th place with $10.5 billion from shipping and energy interests.

The two are the sons of Israeli shipping tycoon Sammy Ofer, who was once Israel’s richest man.

Brothers Dmitri and Igor Bukhman, owners of the gaming company Playrix, were ranked 275th with $8.1 billion.

Arnon Milchan, an Israeli Hollywood film producer and a key witness in Netanayahu’s trial, was the 851st richest person with $3.5 billion.

Adam Neumann, the founder of WeWork, was ranked 2,076th with $1.4 billion. He resigned from WeWork in 2019 after the company’s disastrous IPO attempt, which was partly blamed on his management. That year, he had $4.1 billion.

Roman Abramovich, a Russian who holds Israeli citizenship and had been touted as the richest Israeli, was in 350th place with an estimated net worth of $6.9 billion, down from $14.5 billion last year. He was ranked among 83 Russians on the list.

Forbes said 34 Russians dropped off the billionaires list following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the biggest drop of any country except China, which lost 87 billionaires due to a government tech crackdown.

Abramovich has been sanctioned by the European Union and the United Kingdom, but not the US.

The world’s richest person was Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, with $219 billion, followed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, with $171 billion.

American tech giants Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Larry Ellison and Steve Ballmer, as well as US investor Warren Buffet, were also in the top 10.

The Jewish former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was 12th, with $82 billion, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was 15th with $67 billion, down sharply from a year earlier.
Former US president Donald Trump was ranked 1,012 with $3 billion.

Josh Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, became the first of his family on the list with a net worth of $2 billion from venture capital investments.

There were 2,668 billionaires in the world, 87 fewer than last year, worth a total of $12.7 trillion, Forbes said.

A total of 236 new billionaires were added to the list, including pop star Rihanna and director Peter Jackson, and 329 people fell off the list. The US had the most total entrants, with 735, followed by China, with 607.

The world’s billionaires overall lost $400 billion dollars in the past year.

France’s Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, heiress to the L’Oreal beauty company, was the world’s richest women, listed with her family at 14th place, alongside 327 other women on the list.

The richest self-made woman was China’s Fan Hongwei, who heads chemical supply company Hengli Petrochemical, who was in 88th place with with $18.2 billion.

Israel is now a far more prominent player on the world stage than its size suggests. As The Times of Israel’s Diplomatic Correspondent, I’m well aware that Israel’s security, strategy and national interests are always scrutinized and have serious implications.

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Real Estate

Colorado Gov. Polis signs new batch of gun laws

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed a new batch of gun legislation into law on Friday, several months after a deadly mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs.

The laws establish a three-day waiting period to obtain a firearm, raise the minimum age to purchase firearms to 21, make it easier to sue gun manufacturers and expand the state’s red flag law.

“Coloradans deserve to be safe in our communities, in our schools, our grocery stores, nightclubs and everywhere in between,” Polis said at the bill signing, according to The Colorado Sun.

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Five people were killed and 17 were injured in November when a 22-year-old gunman opened fire at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs.

A proposed assault weapons ban failed to make it to the governor’s desk alongside the other gun control legislation after the House Judiciary Committee voted last week to postpone consideration of the bill indefinitely.

However, legislation to ban the sale and manufacture of so-called “ghost guns,” or unserialized firearms, remains under consideration in the Colorado state Senate.

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Real Estate

Kushner firm received hundreds of millions from UAE, Qatar

Jared Kushner’s private equity fund has received hundreds of millions of dollars in investments from the UAE and Qatar, according to a report.

Kushner, son-in-law to former President Trump, was the administration’s adviser tasked with policy in the Middle East, including delivering a peace plan between Israel and Palestine.

According to The New York Times, the investments, which follow a similar cash injection from Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund, raise concerns about how those close to the Trump administration have profited off of their former government roles.

The UAE sovereign wealth fund invested about $200 million with Kushner’s firm, Affinity Equity, and a Qatari fund invested about the same, according to the Times. The recently revealed investments are small compared to that of the Saudi fund, which invested $2 billion with Affinity in 2021, shortly after Kushner left the White House.

The investments are not believed to be illegal, as there are few ethics guidelines or laws regarding foreign investments in private firms after an official leaves government work. The investments are also not unique to Kushner, as investing is a known strategy of Gulf states to exert influence with American officials on both sides of the aisle.

Former Trump administration Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s investment firm has also received vast sums from Middle Eastern wealth funds, including $1 billion from the Saudi wealth fund.

Similarly, Trump himself has announced business deals with Middle Eastern interests, including a Saudi-backed, Trump-branded hotel complex costing $4 billion. Trump has also been a vocal supporter of the Saudi-owned LIV Golf Tour, the upstart rival to the American PGA, including hosting tournaments at his golf courses.

Last year, the House Oversight Committee, then controlled by Democrats, launched an investigation into the initial Saudi investment into Kushner’s fund. Then-Chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said the investigation was into whether Kushner traded influence from this government position for the investment.

“Your close relationship with Crown Prince bin Salman, your pro-Saudi positions during the Trump Administration, and PIF’s decision to fund the lion’s share of your new business venture — only six months after the end of your White House tenure — create the appearance of a quid pro quo for your foreign policy work during the Trump Administration,” Maloney said in a letter to Kushner at the time.

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Real Estate

2 Cases Filed Against Wrestling Body Chief, 1 Of Them For Harassing Minor

he Delhi Police, which functions under Amit Shah’s Home Ministry, filed the two first information reports (FIRs) hours after the Supreme Court ordered them to do so.

The Delhi Police have filed two cases against Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh after the country’s top wrestlers made allegations of sexual harassment against him.
The Delhi Police, which functions under Amit Shah’s Home Ministry, filed the two first information reports (FIRs) hours after the Supreme Court ordered them to do so, amid protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar by wrestlers including Bajrang Punia, Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat.

One of the FIRs is over a complaint of sexual harassment by a minor, filed under the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, which gives no scope for bail.

The Delhi Police will pursue the case actively, sources said.

Mr Singh, who is also a BJP MP, welcomed the Supreme Court’s order to file the police case into allegations of sexual harassment against him.

Mr Singh told reporters the wrestlers should have waited for the report of a committee that was tasked to look into the matter before they decided to sit on a protest in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.

“I am happy with the judiciary’s decision. The Delhi Police will investigate the allegations and I am ready to cooperate with them in every possible way. No one is bigger than the judiciary in this country. The order has come to file an FIR (first information report). The government had also said it had no objection to filing an FIR. I am not larger than the Supreme Court. I welcome the order,” Mr Singh told reporters.

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