The World’s Richest Person Is the Saudi King Salman, at around $2 Trillion

Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)

The Saudi King owns the Saudi Government, which includes the world’s 4th-largest market-capitalization corporation, Aramco, which, as-of 1 April 2024, had a market capitalization of $1.98 trillion, so that if he were to have sold Aramco on that date, then he would have received around $2T for it, and could do anything he wants with that money.

The fact that that corporation is fully controlled by him as being the owner — the absolute monarch — of Saudi Arabia, which includes that asset, does not in any way negate the fact that he owns the entity that owns this $2T asset, and that he therefore is fully in control over it.

As-of today, 15 April 2024, that corporation is worth $1.955T.

Furthermore: None of this is actually news, but no one has published it before, except myself on 16 October 2015, when I reported:

The richest person in the world isn’t anyone in the Forbes list, which excludes calculations for any heads-of-state, but is instead King Salman of Saudi Arabia, whose net worth is in the trillions of dollars. He virtually owns the Saudi Government, which owns the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, among other assets. Aramco alone is worth “anywhere between US$1.25 trillion[7] and US$7 trillion,[8] making it the world’s most valuable company.” The company’s website says: “1980: Saudi Arabian government acquires 100 percent participation interest in Aramco,” most of which it had already owned.

At that time, TIME magazine published on 1 June 2015, “These Are the 10 Richest Royals in the World”, and reported none of them having more than $30B, and among them was:

3. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Former King of Saudi Arabia — $18 billion

Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the late King of Saudia Arabia, had an estimated wealth of $18 billion in 2011, according him to Forbes, making him the third richest royal in the world before his death on Jan. 23, 2015. When Abdullah took the throne in 2005, the oil-rich country soon began a $26 billion construction project of a city named in his honor.

Nothing was said about the then-current King, the still-current one, Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. Nor was Aramco even mentioned, at all.

Moreover, Aramco is only one of the many assets that the King of Saudi Arabia owns. Might his wealth actually exceed $3T? Perhaps — but my 2015 article about his wealth was ignored by all mainstream ‘news’-media, including the ones that focused on billionaires.

On 17 July 2019, Business Insider headlined “Meet the 10 richest billionaire royals in the world right now”, and reported:

3. King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Saudi Arabia

Net worth:$18 billion

The source of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud’s wealth comes from his family’s ownership of a media group that includes the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat and Al Eqtisadiah.

Now, on 15 April 2024, Forbes online headlines “The World’s Real-Time Billionaires”, and, at the top of it, as being the world’s richest people, are:

RANK NAME NET WORTH CHANGE AGE SOURCE COUNTRY/TERRITORY

1

Bernard Arnault & family

$209.5 B

▶ $0M | 0.00%

75

LVMH

France

2

Jeff Bezos

$203.8 B

▶ $0M | 0.00%

60

Amazon

United States

3

Elon Musk

$192.7 B

▶ $0M | 0.00%

52

Tesla, SpaceX

United States

4

Mark Zuckerberg

$179.4 B

▶ $0M | 0.00%

39

Facebook

United States

5

Larry Ellison

$150.1 B

▶ $0M | 0.00%

79

Oracle

United States

6

Warren Buffett

$132.8 B

▶ $0M | 0.00%

93

Berkshire Hathaway

United States

7

Larry Page

$131.3 B

▶ $0M | 0.00%

51

Google

United States

8

Bill Gates

$129.9 B

▶ $0M | 0.00%

68

Microsoft

United States

9

Sergey Brin

$126.1 B

▶ $0M | 0.00%

50

Google

United States

10

Steve Ballmer

$124.8 B

▶ $0M | 0.00%

68

Microsoft

United States

Also on April 15th, is the “Bloomberg Billionaires Index”, at the top of which are:

Rank Name Total net worth $ Last change $ YTD change Country / Region

1 Bernard Arnault $215B -$4.03B +$7.18B France

2 Jeff Bezos $208B -$2.69B +$31.4B United States

3 Elon Musk $185B -$2.54B -$44.0B United States

4 Mark Zuckerberg $182B -$3.86B +$53.5B United States

5 Bill Gates $152B -$847M +$10.8B United States

6 Steve Ballmer $146B -$1.92B +$15.0B United States

7 Larry Page $142B -$1.23B +$15.3B United States

8 Sergey Brin $135B -$1.15B +$14.6B United States

9 Larry Ellison $135B -$1.88B +$11.6B United States

10 Warren Buffett $133B -$1.74B +$13.4B United States

All of these articles (except for mine) are from mainstream U.S. media, the same group that constantly claim that what they call “fake news” comes from only non-mainstream media, such as I am — because the billionaires who control the U.S. Government and their agents such as NewsGuard and such as the U.S. Government and such as all of the Web-browsers, hide and suppress my articles, and suppress likewise the works of other rigorously truth-focused jouralists and bloggers such as I, as much as they want the laws (that they are indirectly resonsible for being written and interpreted in the way that they are) allow to be suppressed. But there is nothing illegal about me, nor about anything that I have ever written.

Some truths are simply prohibited by the powers-that-be; and, evidently, the fact that the wealthiest person in the world is a king who is approximately ten times richer than any of the billionaires (and perhaps is the world’s only trillionaire) is something that the powers-that-be never publicize but alway ignore, or else contradict as being even among the ten richest persons — all of whom, taken together, are less wealthy than that one person is.

—————

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.