$20 Billion Dollar Saudi Prince Not Happy With Forbes’ ‘Billionaires’ list
Crotchety Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a Saudi Arabian worth an
estimated $20 billion by Forbes, has cut ties with the financial
magazine after he came in at 26th on the latest “Billionaires” list. The
crabby prince contends he’s worth $29.6 billion and should be in the
top 10, the magazine reported.
So upset is Prince Alwaleed by the perceived
slight, he wants nothing more to do with Forbes and has asked the
magazine to remove him from the list.
"We have worked very openly with the Forbes team over the years and
have on multiple occasions pointed out problems with their methodology
that need correction," read a statement from the Kingdom Holding
Company, which the prince owns. "However, after several years of our
efforts to correct mistakes falling on deaf ears, we have decided that
Forbes has no intention of improving the accuracy of their valuation of
our holdings and we have made the decision to move on."
Forbes claims Alwaleed, 58, has tried for years to affect his fortune
with pleading and fudged numbers. In 1988, the magazine says, Alwaleed
approached Forbes to ensure he’d be listed in the second-ever
“Billionaires” issue.
“Of the 1,426 billionaires on our list, not one — not even the
vainglorious Donald Trump — goes to greater measure to try to affect his
or her ranking,” the magazine wrote recently in an article for which
Alwaleed declined comment.
The article goes on to report that ex-employees say “various
thresholds — a top 20 or top 10 position — are stated goals in the
palace.”
Number one this year is Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican telecom mogul who
holds down the first spot for the fourth year in a row with an
estimated net worth of $73 billion. New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg came in at 13th with a net worth of about $27 billion.
The cranky prince, who made his fortune off bigtime investments,
can’t be happy about this year’s ranking. He’s 26th, whether he likes it
or not.
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