(Bloomberg) — Even in the emirate of Dubai — renowned for embracing ambitious projects — many were taken aback when local tycoon Hussain Sajwani stood beside Donald Trump to pledge a $20 billion investment in US data centers.
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In the city’s property circles, the 71-year-old founder of Damac Group and longtime Trump business partner has a reputation as a hard-charging businessman who has survived sharp market downturns over the years. More recently, a five-year-long property boom in Dubai has pushed his net worth above $13 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He lives in a sprawling mansion, complete with golden Italian arches and glitzy furniture.
Still, people familiar with his business say he isn’t seen wielding major national influence or maintaining a tight relationship with Abu Dhabi’s oil-rich state funds. That’s left industry insiders and others in the emirate questioning how successful he’s likely to be in bankrolling and pulling off his ambitious plans in the US.
Sajwani, for his part, is taking any skepticism in stride. There’s no government money slated for the project at the moment, he said in a Bloomberg TV interview. By his own telling, his company will have to tap debt to keep his word to Trump: Infrastructure projects like this one usually get as much as 70% of their funding from banks and financial institutions, he said. Damac will fund the rest and he’s confident its balance sheet can hold up.
“We’d wanted to see a more friendly government that encourages foreign investments, and we feel it’s the right time now,” Sajwani said of the US.
It’s a bold move in the spirit of Trump, who rose into the billionaire ranks through a combination of business sense, bling and bluster. Sajwani’s ties to the president-elect date back a decade and include building a luxury golf course bearing the Trump name.
Though Damac has made other billion-dollar promises to build data centers internationally, and has invested in tech companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI, it remains largely a real-estate company focused on Dubai. Damac Properties had more than $2 billion in revenue in 2023, according to an S&P Global Ratings report, about a third of the revenue of Dubai’s largest developer, Emaar Properties PJSC. It also had $4.4 billion in cash at the end of 2023, according to S&P, mostly in escrow accounts.
Industry insiders and analysts interviewed by Bloomberg said any roll out of the data centers in the US could be slow at best and begin with small investments.
“The first surprise in the announcement was that the number was bigger than what anyone would’ve expected,” Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati academic, said about Sajwani’s Mar-a-Lago press conference with Trump earlier this month. “The second surprise is that the money is in data centers, an area Sajwani is not very known for.”
A representative for Damac didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The global spotlight marks a dramatic ascent for Sajwani, an Emirati businessman who got his start selling meals to US troops in the Gulf three decades ago. After that, he founded Damac in 2002 as Dubai allowed foreigners to own properties in selected locations. He rode a boom until the 2008 property crash, which forced him and other developers to cancel projects as buyers stopped paying and demand evaporated.
Damac was one of few private developers that survived the crash, which shaved more than 60% off Dubai’s residential property values. Damac listed in Dubai in 2015 before delisting in 2022 as the property market was starting to turn around, disappointing some investors.
His relationship with Trump dates back to 2013 when he partnered with the New York businessman on a Dubai golf course and housing development. Over the years, he’s often flaunted his relationship with the Trump family, noting the partnership in press releases and talking about visits to Mar-a-Lago. More recently, Trump’s company has partnered with another firm, Dar Global, for its expansion in the Middle East.
In recent weeks, however, Sajwani has been at Mar-a-Lago and meeting with those in the president-elect’s orbit, including Elon Musk, he said in the Bloomberg TV interview, calling the world’s richest person “an amazing gentleman with a vision.”
A devout Muslim, Sajwani has four children, three of whom are involved in the property business. Much like Trump, he welcomes the limelight, inviting journalists to his large mansion with a garden overlooking the Gulf at the tip of one of the fronds on Dubai’s artificial Palm Jumeirah island.
While Damac is primarily a real-estate firm, the billionaire has expanded into data centers in recent years. The company last year said it plans to invest about $3 billion to build data centers across Southeast Asia as the region becomes a hub for artificial intelligence and cloud services.
Still, in the US, “Damac will likely be behind the curve,” said Andy Cvengros, co-lead of US data center markets at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. “Like others, they’ll face the same issues with power availability and delivery timing.”
While $20 billion sounds like a large number, a single campus can cost between $5 billion and $10 billion, he said.
Sajwani, standing alongside Trump, pledged to invest upwards of $20 billion “if the opportunity, the market, allow us.”
“These are exciting — but highly competitive — times in the industry,” Cvengros said.
–With assistance from Devon Pendleton, Mark Bergen, Guy Johnson, Kriti Gupta and Lizzy Burden.
