Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has been released by Saudi Arabia after being detained on corruption allegations. So far, the country has released almost a hundred people that were detained on corruption allegations, and one of them was Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
Prince bin Talal is a billionaire price known as the “Arabian Warren Buffet” because he’s one of tech’s biggest investors and known to take major stakes in various tech corporations. His current and former investment include AOL, eBay, HP, Amazon, Apple, Lyft and Twitter.
He was previously arrested in November when Saudi Arabian government launched a massive corruption crackdown and confined at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh. Detainees were released after reaching financial settlements with authorities, which expect to raise $100 billion from this. Right now, it’s unclear what kind of settlement bin Talal engaged in.
Prince bin Talal has a net worth of about $17 billion, so he could surely find some sort of settlement with Saudi Arabia. Hours after being released, he spoke with Reuters and told them that he’s “continuing to maintain his innocence of any corruption in talks with authorities.” He further defended himself by saying that his confinement was a misunderstanding and he supports Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s economic efforts despite previous reports saying that he’s heavily against them.
Despite being accused of money laundering, extorting officials and bribery, he said that there will be no charges against him: “There are just some discussions between me and the government. I believe we are on the verge of finishing everything within days.” Even though terms of his agreement weren’t released, he said that he expects to maintain full control over his investment firm Kingdom Holding Company.
