“I’ve traveled to Dubai and throughout Asia to bring investment like this to Oklahoma. This is phenomenal news.”
It’s what Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt stated this week after President-elect Donald Trump announced this week a $20 billion foreign investment to build new data centers in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana.
The man behind the investment is Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani, founder of property development company DAMAC Properties. His plan is to support the growing demand for artificial intelligence and cloud services.
“It’s been amazing news for me and my family when [Trump] was elected in November. We’ve been waiting four years to increase our investment in [the] U.S. to very large amounts of money,” he said in brief remarks at Mar-a-Lago where the announcement was made.
“They may go double, or even somewhat more than double, that amount of money,” Trump said of Sajwani’s company.
The “first phase” of the plan will take place in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana, Trump said.
Just where in Oklahoma isn’t known. Reports indicated the sites for the data centers have yet to be determined.
Sajwani is considered to be a close friend of Trump and in 2016, Trump reported he received between $1 million to $5 million from DAMAC. He founded DAMAC Properties in early 2002. The firm was listed in the Dubai Financial Market but later was delisted in 2022 when it went private again. Sajwani retained 72% of all shares and bought the remaining shares for $595 million.
DAMAC developed a master-planned residential golf course community around the Trump International Gold Club in Dubai seven years ago. It is reflective of the long-standing partnership the real estate firm has with Trump’s businesses.
DAMAC board member and former chairman Farooq Arjomand was caught up in the claims of bribery made against President Biden and his son Hunter Biden. According to The Guardian, Arjomand allegedly had paid $600,000 to Alexander Smirnov for him to claim to the FBI that the two Bidens were engaged in a bribery scheme.