#Forbes | $2 Billion

[xtruss]

Mohamed al-Fayed, Tycoon Whose Son Died With Diana, Is Dead At 94

An Egyptian businessman, he built an empire of trophy properties in London, Paris and elsewhere, but it was all overshadowed by a fatal car crash that stunned the world.

— By Robert D. McFadden | September 1, 2023

Mohamed al-Fayed in 2003 outside the Court of Session in Edinburgh, where a judge was asked to consider whether the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and his son Dodi, was caused deliberately. Credit...David Cheskin/Press Association, via Associated Press

Mohamed al-Fayed, the Egyptian business tycoon whose empire of trophy properties and influence in Europe and the Middle East was overshadowed by the 1997 Paris car crash that killed his eldest son, Dodi, and Diana, the Princess of Wales, died on Wednesday. He was 94.

His death was confirmed on Friday in a statement by the Fulham Football Club in Britain, of which Mr. Fayed was a former owner. It did not say where he died.

The patriarch of a family that rose from humble origins to fabled riches, Mr. Fayed controlled far-flung enterprises in oil, shipping, banking and real estate, including the palatial Ritz Hotel in Paris and, for 25 years, the storied London retail emporium Harrods. Forbes estimated his net worth at $2 billion this year, ranking his wealth as 1,516th in the world.

In a sense, Mr. Fayed was a citizen of the world. He had homes in London, Paris, New York, Geneva, St. Tropez and other locales; a fleet of 40 ships based in Genoa, Italy, and in Cairo; and businesses that reached from the Persian Gulf to North Africa, Europe and the Americas. He held Egyptian citizenship but rarely if ever returned to his native land.

Mr. Fayed lived and worked mostly in Britain, where for a half-century he was a quintessential outsider, scorned by the establishment in a society still embedded with old-boy networks. He clashed repeatedly with the government and business rivals over his property acquisitions and attempts to influence members of Parliament. He campaigned noisily for British citizenship, but his applications were repeatedly denied.

“It’s the colonial, imperial fantasy,” Mr. Fayed told The New York Times in 1995. “Anyone who comes from a colony, as Egypt was before, they think he’s nothing. So you prove you’re better than they are. You do things that are the talk of the town. And they think, ‘How can he? He’s only an Egyptian.’”

Mr. Fayed at a party at the venerable London department store Harrods in 1989. His takeover of the store in 1985 struck many Britons as akin to buying Big Ben. Credit...Fairchild Archive/WWD, via Penske Media, via Getty Images

He reveled in the trappings of a British aristocrat. He bought a castle in Scotland and sometimes wore a kilt; snapped up a popular British football club; cultivated Conservative prime ministers and members of Parliament; sponsored the Royal Horse Show at Windsor; and tried unsuccessfully to salvage Punch, the moribund satirical magazine that had lampooned the British establishment for 150 years.

His takeover of the venerable Harrods in 1985 struck many Britons as shameless brass, something akin to buying Big Ben. A year later, as if securing a jewel in the crown of British heritage, Mr. Fayed signed a 50-year lease on the 19th-century villa in Paris that had been the home of the former King Edward VIII of Britain and Wallis Warfield Simpson, the divorced American woman for whom he abdicated his throne in 1936.

But Mr. Fayed’s triumph as an Anglophile was the made-for-tabloids romance between his eldest son, Emad, known as Dodi, and the Princess of Wales, who had recently been divorced from Prince Charles (now King Charles III) and alienated from the royal family. It began in the summer of 1997, when Mr. Fayed invited Diana and her sons to spend some time at his home on the French Riviera and on one of his yachts. Dodi was there too.

The Egyptian-born nephew of the Saudi billionaire arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, Dodi was a notorious playboy who gave lavish parties, financed films, dated beautiful women and was once briefly married. He and Diana had been acquainted, but by many accounts they fell in love on the Mediterranean sojourn. As their romance bloomed, the British press pounced. Paparazzi hounded the couple everywhere they went.

A cameraman filmed the site of the car accident in Paris that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, and Mr. Fayed’s eldest son, Dodi al-Fayed, in 1997. Mr. Fayed declared that they had been murdered by “people who did not want Diana and Dodi to be together.”Credit...Jacques Demarthon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In the early hours of Aug. 31, 1997, a Mercedes-Benz carrying Diana and Dodi and driven by Henri Paul, a Fayed security agent who was drunk and traveling at a high speed trying to elude carloads of pursuing paparazzi, slammed head-on into a concrete pillar in a tunnel in Paris. All three were killed.

Controversy exploded over the cause of the crash and the implications of the affair. Some tabloids suggested that an immigrant had been an unfit suitor for a princess. But friends said that the couple had planned to marry, and that the Fayed family had offered Diana and her sons a warmth that contrasted with the way Britain’s royal family had shunned her after the divorce.

As rumors and conspiracy theories swirled, Mr. Fayed declared that the two had been murdered by “people who did not want Diana and Dodi to be together.” He said they had been engaged to marry and maintained that they had called him an hour before the crash to tell him that she was pregnant. Buckingham Palace and the princess’s family denounced his remarks as malicious fantasy.

The deaths inspired waves of books, articles and investigations of conspiracy theories, as well as a period of soul-searching among Britons, who resented the royal family’s standoffish behavior and were caught up in displays of mass grief. In 2006, the British police ruled the crash an accident.

And in 2008, a British coroner’s jury rejected all conspiracy theories involving the royal family, British intelligence services and others. It attributed the deaths to “gross negligence” by the driver and the pursuing paparazzi. It also said a French pathologist had found that Diana was not pregnant.

Mr. Fayed called the verdict biased, but he and his lawyers did not pursue the matter further. “I’ve had enough,” he told Britain’s ITV News. “I’m leaving this to God to get my revenge.”

Mr Al Fayed, with his wife Heini, at the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997. Diana, Princess of Wales, 36, Dies in a Crash in Paris. August 31, 1997.

Mohamed al-Fayed was born Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed in Alexandria, Egypt, on Jan. 27, 1929, one of five children of a primary-school teacher, Aly Aly Fayed. Details about his early life are murky.

His accounts of growing up in a prosperous merchant family were discounted by British investigators. He sold sewing machines and joined his two younger brothers, Ali and Salah, in a shipping business. In the early 1950s, Adnan Khashoggi set the brothers up in a venture that exported Egyptian furniture to Saudi Arabia. It flourished.

In 1954, Mr. Fayed married Mr. Khashoggi’s sister, Samira. Dodi was their only child. They were divorced in 1956. In 1985, he married Heini Wathén, a Finn. They had four children, all born in Britain: Jasmine, Karim, Camilla and Omar.

Information on survivors was not immediately available.

The Fayed shipping interests profited handsomely from an oil boom in the Persian Gulf in the 1960s. Acting as middlemen for British construction companies and gulf rulers, they helped develop the port of Dubai, the Dubai Trade Center and other properties in what is now the United Arab Emirates.

Mohammed Al Fayed stands in front of the east stand of Craven Cottage, home of Fulham. Photograph: Kieran Doherty/Reuters

Mr. Fayed at the Craven Cottage stadium in London in 2012 before an English Premier League soccer match between Fulham and Sunderland. Mr. Fayed was Fulham’s owner and club chairman. Credit...Alastair Grant/Associated Press

Mr. Fayed, who made all his family’s major investment and financial decisions, moved to London in the mid-1960s. He added “al-” to his surname, implying aristocratic origins. After buying the Scottish castle, he expanded its estate to 65,000 acres; after acquiring the Fulham Football Club, he built it into a top team in a nation infatuated with the sport. (He sold the team in 2013 to a Pakistani American businessman.) A heavy contributor to the Conservative Party, he nurtured relationships with members of Parliament and Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

In 1979, the Fayed brothers bought the fading Ritz Hotel in Paris for under $30 million and, with a 10-year, $250 million renovation, turned it into one of the world’s most luxurious hotels. Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed dined in the Imperial Suite before their fatal crash.

In 1984-85, in their greatest commercial coup in Britain, the Fayeds paid $840 million for the House of Fraser, the parent company of Harrods and scores of other stores, and invested $300 million more to refurbish the chain’s flagship, in London’s exclusive Knightsbridge section.

After the sale of Harrods to Qatar in 2010 Mr Al Fayed stayed on as honorary chairman for six months

Mohamed Al Fayed in the Harrods food halls. Photograph: Mark Richards/Daily Mail/Shutterstock

Prodded by a business rival, the government investigated the Harrods deal and in 1990 concluded that the Fayed brothers had “dishonestly misrepresented” themselves as descendants of an old landowning and shipbuilding family. The government report said the money for Harrods had probably come from the Sultan of Brunei. The sultan denied it, and Mr. Fayed, who was not accused of wrongdoing, called the report a smear.

In investigative reports by the press and the police, Mr. Fayed was accused by many women of unwanted sexual advances, job-related sexual harassment of female employees at Harrods, and even sexual assault involving teenage girls. He denied the allegations and, although he was questioned by the authorities in Britain, he was never prosecuted on such charges.

Mr. Fayed was bitter about being stymied in his quest for British citizenship, although all his children by his second wife held that status. As he noted, he had lived in Britain for decades, paid millions in taxes, employed thousands of people and, through his enterprises, contributed mightily to the economy.

Mohamed Al Fayed leaves the High Court in London, after giving evidence at the inquest into the death of his son, Dodi, and Diana, Princess of Wales. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

“They could not accept that an Egyptian could own Harrods, so they threw mud at me,” he told reporters. He sold Harrods in 2010 to Qatar Holding, the sovereign wealth fund of the Emirate of Qatar, for more than $2 billion, and announced his retirement.

— Robert D. McFadden is a Senior Writer on the Obituaries Desk and the Winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting. He joined The New York Times in May 1961 and is also the Co-Author of Two Books.

[mariacallous]

In 2024, wealth concentration rose to an all-time high. According to Forbes’ Billionaires List, not only are there more billionaires than ever—2,781—but those billionaires are also richer than ever, with an aggregate worth of $14.2 trillion. This is a trend that looks set to continue unabated. A recent report from the financial data company Altrata estimated that about 1.2 million individuals who are worth more than $5 million will pass on a collective wealth of almost $31 trillion over the next decade.

Discontentment and concern over the consequences of extreme wealth in our society is growing. Senator Bernie Sanders, for instance, stated that the “obscene level of income and wealth inequality in America is a profoundly moral issue.” In a joint op-ed for CNN in 2023, Democratic congresswoman Barbara Lee and Disney heiress Abigail Disney wrote that “extreme wealth inequality is a threat to our economy and democracy.” In 2024, when the board of Tesla put to vote a $56 billion pay package for Elon Musk, some major shareholders voted against it, declaring that such a compensation level was “absurd” and “ridiculous.”

In 2025, the fight against rising wealth inequality will be high on the political agenda. In July 2024, the G20—the world’s 20 biggest economies—agreed to work on a proposal by Brazil to introduce a new global “billionaire tax” that would levy a 2 percent tax on assets worth more than $1 billion. This would raise an estimated $250 billion a year. While this specific proposal was not endorsed in the Rio declaration, the G20 countries agreed that the super rich should be taxed more.

Progressive politicians won’t be the only ones trying to address this problem. In 2025, millionaires themselves will increasingly mobilize and put pressure on political leaders. One such movement is Patriotic Millionaires, a nonpartisan group of multimillionaires who are already publicly campaigning and privately lobbying the American Congress for a guaranteed living wage for all, a fair tax system, and the protection of equal representation. “Millionaires and large corporations—who have benefited most from our country’s assets—should pay a larger percentage of the tab for running the country,” reads their value statement. Members include Abigail Disney, former BlackRock executive Morris Pearl, legal scholar Lawrence Lessig, screenwriter Norman Lear, and investor Lawrence Benenson.

Another example is TaxMeNow, a lobby group founded in 2021 by young multimillionaires in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland which also advocates for higher wealth taxation. Its most famous member is the 32-year old Marlene Engelhorn, descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn, founder of German pharma giant BASF. She recently set up a council made up of 50 randomly selected Austrian citizens to decide what should happen to her €25 million inheritance. “I have inherited a fortune, and therefore power, without having done anything for it,” she said in a statement. “If politicians don’t do their job and redistribute, then I have to redistribute my wealth myself.”

Earlier this year, Patriotic Millionaires, TaxMeNow, Oxfam, and another activist group called Millionaires For Humanity formed a coalition called Proud to Pay More, and addressed a letter to global leaders during the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Signed by hundreds of high-net-worth individuals—including heiress Valerie Rockefeller, actor Simon Pegg, and filmmaker Richard Curtis—the letter stated: “We all know that ‘trickle down economics’ has not translated into reality. Instead it has given us stagnating wages, crumbling infrastructure, failing public services, and destabilized the very institution of democracy.” It concluded: “We ask you to take this necessary and inevitable step before it’s too late. Make your countries proud. Tax extreme wealth.” In 2025, thanks to the nascent movement of activist millionaires, these calls will grow even louder.

[avicinda]

I have seen a few "but I want to support the devs!" about the boycott and I think we need to have some perspective here.

Paper Games is not a small indie company where your money goes directly to the devs. This is a company that not only also runs Love Nikki and Shining Nikki, but also Love and Deepspace.

And in 2024.... (archive link of Forbes article "AI Boyfriends Make Chinese Gaming Entrepreneur Yao Runhao A Billionaire")

Established in 2013, Paper Games clocked sales of around $850 million worldwide, according to data providers.

The privately held studio, of which Yao is chairman and CEO, is valued at over $2 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates, based on discussions with analysts and information from four data providers.

Paper Games is a company with 2000 employees and a billionaire CEO.

The conversation around Infinity Nikki's monetization is not about "punishing devs", it's about pushing back against a company that has cornered the market of female gacha players and are now up to their old tactics of testing those players to see how much money they can milk out of them.

They're not just some devs throwing things at the wall to see what works so they can keep the lights on, they've probably got an entire team dedicated to figuring out exactly how to get Infinity Nikki to make more money off of us.

[kemetic-dreams]

Most of the enslaved Africans brought to Barbados were from the Bight of Biafra (62,000 Africans), the Gold Coast (59,000 Africans), and the Bight of Benin (45,000 Africans).[2] Other African slaves came from Central Africa (29,000 slaves), Senegambia (14,000 Africans), the Windward Coast (13,000 slaves) and from Sierra Leone (9,000 slaves).

Africans from the Bight of Biafra were primarily Igbo, Ibibio and Efik; Africans from the Gold Coast were primarily Akan; Africans from the Bight of Benin were primarily Yoruba, Ewe and Fon; and Africans from Central Africa were primarily Kongo

I’m originally from Igbo – US singer Rihanna opens up

Forbes’ wealthiest female singer, Rihanna, has disclosed that she is originally an Igbo woman.

Igbo is one of the dominant tribes in Nigeria, and the singer and brand influencer said her mother told her so.

Forbes recently named Rihanna a billionaire and she was officially recognised one of the wealthiest female musicians in the world.

Rihanna’s net worth is estimated at $1.7 billion while still receiving almost $1.4 billion from her beauty cosmetics l

Rihanna’s other fortune comes from her lingerie company Fenti, which is worth another $270 million, among other businesses.

Her mother is an Afro-Guyanese, while her father is a Barbadian of African and Irish descent.

She said: “My mom told me that I am originally an Igbo woman. Igbo is a tribe in Africa,” the singer said in a recent interview and has trended in Nigeria’s social media space for many hours.

Many Nigerians on social media, especially those from the Igbo tribe are now asking her to return to her roots, while others hailed her for coming out with the revelation.

Rihanna also has two brothers, Rorrey and Rajad Fenty.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nobody

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 2, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 03, 2024

Today, Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post reported that there is reason to believe that when Trump’s 2016 campaign was running low on funds, Trump accepted a $10 million injection of cash from Egypt’s authoritarian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It is against the law to accept direct or indirect financial support from foreign nationals or foreign governments for a political campaign in the United States.

In early 2017, CIA officials told Justice Department officials that a confidential informant had told them of such a cash exchange, and those officials handed the matter off to Robert Mueller, the special counsel who was already looking at the links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. FBI agents noted that on September 16, Trump had met with Sisi when the Egyptian leader was at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. 

After the meeting, Trump broke with U.S. policy to praise Sisi, calling him a “fantastic guy.” 

Trump’s campaign had been dogged with a lack of funds, and his advisers had begged him to put some of his own money into it. He refused until October 28, when he loaned the campaign $10 million.

An FBI investigation took years to get records, but Davis and Leonnig reported that in 2019 the FBI learned of a key withdrawal from an Egypt bank. In January 2017, five days before Trump took office, an organization linked to Egypt’s intelligence service asked a manager at a branch of the state-run National Bank of Egypt to “kindly withdraw” $9,998,000 in U.S. currency. The bundles of $100 bills filled two bags and weighed more than 200 pounds. 

Once in office, Trump embraced Sisi and, in a reversal of U.S. policy, invited him to be one of his first guests at the White House. “I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President al-Sissi,” Trump said. 

Mueller had gotten that far in pursuit of the connection between Trump and Sisi when he was winding down his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He handed the Egypt investigation off to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D C., where it appears then–attorney general William Barr killed it. 

Today, Brian Schwartz of CNBC reported that Elon Musk and other tech executives are putting their money behind a social media ad campaign for Trump and Vance, and are creating targeted ads in swing states by collecting information about voters under false pretenses. According to Schwartz, their America PAC, or political action committee, says it helps viewers register to vote. And, indeed, the ads direct would-be voters in nonswing states to voter registration sites.

But people responding to the ad in swing states are not sent to registration sites. Instead, they are presented with “a highly detailed personal information form [and] prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age,” handing over “priceless personal data to a political operation” that can then create ads aimed at that person’s demographic and target them personally in door-to-door campaigns. After getting the information, the site simply says, “Thank you,” without directing the viewer toward a registration site.

Forbes estimates Musk’s wealth at more than $235 billion. 

In June the Trump Organization announced a $500 million deal with Saudi real estate developer Dar Global to build a Trump International hotel in Oman. 

In January 2011, when he was director of the FBI, Robert Mueller gave a speech to the Citizens Crime Commission of New York. He explained that globalization and modern technology had changed the nature of organized crime. Rather than being regional networks with a clear structure, he said, organized crime had become international, fluid, and sophisticated and had multibillion-dollar stakes. Its operators were cross-pollinating across countries, religions, and political affiliations, sharing only their greed. They did not care about ideology; they cared about money. They would do anything for a price.

These criminals “may be former members of nation-state governments, security services, or the military,” he said. “They are capitalists and entrepreneurs. But they are also master criminals who move easily between the licit and illicit worlds. And in some cases, these organizations are as forward-leaning as Fortune 500 companies.”

In order to corner international markets, Mueller explained, these criminal enterprises "may infiltrate our businesses. They may provide logistical support to hostile foreign powers. They may try to manipulate those at the highest levels of government. Indeed, these so-called 'iron triangles' of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders pose a significant national security threat."

In a new book called Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, journalist Anne Applebaum carries that story forward into the present, examining how today’s autocrats work together to undermine democracy. She says that “the language of the democratic world, meaning rights, laws, rule of law, justice, accountability, [and] transparency…[is]  harmful to them,” especially as those are the words that their internal opposition uses. “And so they need to undermine the people who use it and, if they can, discredit it.” 

Those people, Applebaum says, “believe they are owed power, they deserve power.” When they lose elections, they “come back in a second term and say, right, this time, I'm not going to make that mistake again, and…then change their electoral system, or…change the constitution, change the judicial system, in order to make sure that they never lose.”

Almost exactly a year ago, on August 1, 2023, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted former president Donald J. Trump for conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The charges stemmed from Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A grand jury is made up of 23 ordinary citizens who weigh evidence of criminal activity and produce an indictment if 12 or more of them vote in favor. 

The grand jury indicted Trump for “conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the government”; “conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified”; and “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.” 

“Each of these conspiracies,” the indictment reads, “targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” “This federal government function…is foundational to the United States’ democratic process, and until 2021, had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years.” 

The case of the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump was randomly assigned to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was appointed by President Obama in 2014 and confirmed 95–0 in the Senate. Trump pleaded not guilty on August 3, after which his lawyers repeatedly delayed their pretrial motions until, on December 7, Trump asked the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether he was immune from prosecution. Chutkan had to put off her initial trial date of March 4, 2024, and said she would not reschedule until the court decided the question of Trump’s immunity. 

In February the appeals court decided he was not immune. Trump appealed to the Supreme Court, which waited until July 1, 2024, to decide that Trump enjoys broad immunity from prosecution for crimes committed as part of his official acts. Today the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Chutkan, almost exactly a year after it was first brought.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[political-us]

Immigration vs Billionaires

The U.S. loses a significant amount in taxes due to undocumented immigrants, but it’s also important to note that undocumented immigrants still contribute to the economy in various ways, including through taxes.

1. Income Taxes: Many undocumented immigrants pay income taxes, often through false or borrowed Social Security numbers. According to estimates from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), undocumented immigrants contribute approximately $11.7 billion annually in state and federal income taxes.

2. Sales and Property Taxes: In addition to income taxes, undocumented immigrants contribute to state and local revenues through sales taxes when they purchase goods and services. They also pay property taxes indirectly through rent.

3. Overall Contribution: The total tax contribution from undocumented immigrants is estimated to be in the tens of billions, with studies showing that while there is a loss in terms of uncollected taxes from their wages (due to their undocumented status), they also contribute significantly to the U.S. economy in ways that offset these losses.

Overall, it’s difficult to quantify the exact "loss" in taxes due to undocumented immigrants, as the contributions through income, sales, and property taxes are considerable, even if they are not always fully captured.

The estimated cost of lost tax revenue due to undocumented immigrants is typically in the $12 to $13 billion range annually for federal income taxes, while their contributions through state and local taxes are significant, often approaching or exceeding $11 billion annually.

In 2021, Elon Musk ALONE paid approximately $11 billion in federal income taxes. This figure was reported by Forbes and other outlets. However, it's important to note that this is based on his 2021 income and does not include all of his wealth, as much of Musk’s wealth is tied to Tesla stock and other assets, which are not taxed until sold.

Despite his $11 billion tax payment, Musk’s effective tax rate as a percentage of his wealth was significantly lower. According to an investigation by ProPublica in 2021, Musk paid an effective federal income tax rate of around 3.27% on the $13.9 billion increase in his wealth from 2014 to 2018. This was much lower than the average rate for middle-income earners due to the fact that most of his wealth comes from unrealized capital gains, which are not taxed until the assets are sold.

Key Points:

The $13.9 billion refers to how much Musk’s wealth grew between 2014 and 2018 due to Tesla stock increasing in value. This increase is called unrealized capital gains (because he hasn’t sold the stock, so it’s not taxed yet).

Capital gains are the profits from selling things like stock. When Musk sells his stock, he pays taxes on the profit (capital gains).

Musk's effective tax rate was about 3.27% during that period because he paid taxes on income he actually earned (like when he sold stock), but didn’t pay taxes on the unrealized gains (the increase in the value of his unsold stock). This is why the percentage of tax he paid on his overall wealth is very low compared to regular workers who pay taxes on all their income.

In short, Musk’s $13.9 billion is how much his wealth grew from 2014 to 2018, and he paid very little tax on that growth because he hadn’t sold most of his stock during that time. He only paid taxes on what he sold in later years.

[art-that-fucks-you-up-tournament]

SET ONE FINAL - ROUND FOUR

"Hubble Deep Field" (1996 - Hubble Space Telescope) / "Can’t Help Myself" (2016 - Sun Yuan & Peng Yu)

HUBBLE DEEP FIELD: This photo is kind of only incidentally art, but it is one of my favorite photographs ever. It is the visual byproduct of scientific and technological advancement. Honestly, its not even the most visually impressive Hubble (or other deep space telescope) photo. But I don't think there is anything else in the entire world which can so clearly and deeply impart the existential, incomprehensible vastness of the universe. * This photo represents a section of the night sky with "nothing" in it. There are no stars and it is outside of the plane of the Milky Way. From our view on Earth, it is less than a square inch across. Before this image, we knew of other galaxies, and their abundance was absolutely hypothesized, but no one really knew what to expect when examining such a small, seemingly empty part of the night sky. This is what they found. A tiny fraction of the night sky revealed to be teeming with thousands of galaxies, light reaching us from billions of lightyears away. To extrapolate and imagine that the entirety of the night sky is full of this, a vast blanket hidden behind our local stars. At the time, hundreds of billions of galaxies were estimated to exist. Today that estimation has risen to 2 trillion. 2 trillion potential Milky Ways. 2 trillion of the 100 billion stars that exist in our galaxy, there ever growing and evolving and expanding. I look at this image and just feel so utterly and completely small. How can you look at this and not feel atomic. There is so much of everything, and even still there is darkness, space, filled with so much light and possibilities. It represents both our loneliness as a planet, our isolation, and our connection to the universe, that there is no way we are alone, that we keep reaching out and trying to learn and understand our existence. (if you are interested in some more of the science of this, I'd recommend this Forbes article. I think its a good summary of the history and science, and provides a lot of jumping off points for further research) *disclaimer - there are and continue to be images taken with the same and improved techniques to explore space outside of the galaxy. This was, to the best of my knowledge, the first long exposure of dark space. (travelingsmithy)

CAN'T HELP MYSELF: easily one of the installment pieces of all fucking time. the way that the robot originally began as a smooth, precise sort of machine, efficient and quick, but slowly decomposed into jerkier and messier movements because of its own inability to "help itself" since it needs to clean all of its spill or it can't stop is so so visceral and kind of makes me want to tear my hair out. the way the artists capture human movement and desperation in the robot is incredible. to me it kind of appeals to a sick human desire to watch something outside of ourselves suffer, but also the human ability to connect with anything, even a machine. it's so easy to see ourselves in something mechanical!! we are looking for ourselves in everything!!! that's so fucked up and cool!!! (fromjannah)

(The Hubble Space Telescope took this photo in 1996, and it was the first picture ever taken of deep space. "Hubble Deep Field" was originally imaged by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, a camera initially installed upon the Hubble Telescope

"Can't Help Myself" is a Kuka industrial robot made of stainless steel and rubber mopping up cellulose ether in coloured water made by two Chinese artists, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu. This installation was displayed in Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York but was removed from display.)

[misfitwashere]

May 30, 2025 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 31

READ IN APP

In July 2024, according to an article published today by Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey in the New York Times, billionaire Elon Musk texted privately about his concerns that government investigations into his businesses would “take me down.” “I can’t be president,” he wrote, “but I can help Trump defeat Biden and I will.”

After appearing on stage with Trump on October 5, Musk texted a person close to him: “I’m feeling more optimistic after tonight. Tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix.” About an hour later, he added: “This is not something on the chessboard, so they will be quite surprised. “‘Lasers’ from space.”

Musk invested about $290 million in the 2024 election and, when Trump took office, became a fixture in the White House, heading the “Department of Government Efficiency.” It set out to kill government programs by withholding congressionally approved funds, a practice that courts have ruled unconstitutional and Congress expressly prohibited with the 1974 Impoundment Control Act.

Musk vowed that his “Department of Government Efficiency” would cut $2 trillion from the U.S. budget, but he quickly backed off on those numbers. In the end, DOGE claimed savings of $175 billion, but that claim is unverifiable and CNN’s Casey Tolan says it’s probably wrong: less than half of it is backed up with any documentation.

Instead, as CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf reported today, since DOGE cut staffing at the enforcement wing of the Internal Revenue Service, for example, and cut employees at national parks, which also generate revenue, its cuts may well end up costing money. Max Stier, who heads the Partnership for Public Service, suggests DOGE cuts could cost U.S. taxpayers $135 billion because agencies will need to train and hire replacements for the workers DOGE fired. Stier called DOGE’s actions “arson of a public asset.”

Grind and Twohey reported that Musk’s drug consumption during the campaign—they could not speak to his habits in the White House, although he appeared high today at a White House press conference—was “more intense than previously known.” He was a chronic user of ketamine, took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, and traveled with a box that held about 20 pills for daily use. Those in frequent contact with him worried about his frequent drug use, erratic behavior, and mood swings. As a government contractor, Musk should receive random drug tests, but Grind and Twohey say he received advance warning of those tests.

It was never clear that Musk’s role at DOGE was legal, and the White House has tried to maintain that he was only an advisor, despite Trump’s February 19 statement, “I signed an order creating [DOGE] and put a man named Elon Musk in charge.” On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that 14 states can proceed with their lawsuit against billionaire Elon Musk and the “Department of Government Efficiency,” saying the states had adequately supported their argument that “Musk and DOGE’s conduct is ‘unauthorized by any law.’”

Trump posted today on social media: “This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way. Elon is terrific!” In a press conference today, Trump reiterated that Musk “is not really leaving.”

Musk’s time at the helm of DOGE might not have saved taxpayer money, but it has changed the world in other ways. Musk has used his time in the government to end investigations into his companies, score government contracts, and get the government to press countries to accept his Starlink communications network as a condition of tariff negotiations. According to John Hyatt of Forbes, Musk’s association with Trump has made him an estimated $170 billion richer.

The implications of DOGE’s actions for Americans are huge. DOGE operatives are now embedded in the U.S. government, where they are mining Americans’ data to create a master database that can sort and find individuals. Former Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper called it “a full-scale redirection of the government’s digital nervous system into the hands of an unelected billionaire.”

Today, Sheera Frenkel and Aaron Krolik of the New York Times reported that Musk put billionaire Peter Thiel’s Palantir data analysis firm into place across the government, where it launched its product Foundry to organize, analyze, and merge data. Thiel provided the money behind Vice President J.D. Vance’s political career. Wired and CNN had previously reported how the administration was using this merged data to target undocumented immigrants, and now employees are detailing their concerns with how the administration could use their newly merged information against Americans more generally.

Internationally, Musk’s destruction of the United States Agency for International Development, slashing about 80% of its grants, is killing about 103 people an hour, most of them children. The total so far is about 300,000 people, according to Boston University infectious disease mathematical modeller Dr. Brooke Nichols. Ryan Cooper of The American Prospect reported today that about 1,500 babies a day are born HIV-positive because Musk’s cuts stopped their mothers’ medication.

In the New York Times today, Michelle Goldberg recalls how Musk appeared uninterested in learning what USAID actually did—prevent starvation and provide basic healthcare—and instead called it a “radical-left political psy-op,” and reposted a smear from right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos calling USAID “the most gigantic global terror organization in history.” Goldberg also recalls Musk’s tendency to call people he disdains “NPCs,” or non-player characters, which are characters in role-playing games whose only role is to advance the storyline for the real players.

Aside from DOGE, the focus of Trump’s administration—other than his own cashing in on the presidency—has been on tariffs and immigration. Like the efforts of DOGE, those show a disdain for the law in favor of concentrating power in the executive branch.

During the campaign, Trump fantasized that constructing a high tariff wall around the U.S. would force other countries to fund the national deficit, enabling a Republican Congress to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. In fact, domestic industries and consumers bear the costs of tariffs. Trump’s high tariffs, many of which he imposed by declaring an economic emergency and then using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), created such havoc in the stock and bond markets that he backed off.

Yesterday, Sayantani Ghosh, David Gaffen, and Arpan Varghese of Reuters reported that although most of the highest tariffs have yet to go into effect, Trump’s trade war has cost companies more than $34 billion in lost sales and higher costs.

Trump has changed tariff policies at least 50 times since he took office, and traders have figured out they can buy stocks cheaply when markets plummet after a dramatic tariff announcement, and sell when Trump changes his mind. This has recently given rise to Trump’s nickname “TACO,” for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

This moniker has apparently irritated Trump so much he has taken to social media to defend his abrupt dropping of tariffs on China, saying he did it to “save them” from “grave economic danger,” although in fact, China turned to other trading partners to cushion the blow of U.S. tariffs. Trump went on to suggest China did not live up to what he considered its part of the bargain, and he would no longer be “Mr. NICE GUY!”

On Wednesday a three-judge panel at the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that President Donald J. Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs based on the IEEPA are illegal. The Constitution gives to Congress, not to the president, the power to levy tariffs. Trump launched a social media rant in which he attacked the judges, insisted that “it is only because of my successful use of Tariffs that many Trillions of Dollars have already begun pouring into the U.S.A. from other Countries,” and said that he could not wait for Congress to handle tariffs because it would take too long—in fact, most of Congress does not approve of the tariffs—and that following the Constitution “would completely destroy Presidential Power.” “The President of the United States must be allowed to protect America against those that are doing it Economic and Financial harm.”

Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit paused that ruling until at least June 9, when both parties will have submitted legal arguments about whether the stay should remain in place as the government appeals the ruling that the tariffs are illegal. White House senior counsel for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro, the key proponent of Trump’s trade war, said: “Even if we lose, we’ll do it another way.”

Today Trump said he will double the tariff on steel imports from 25% to 50%.

The other major focus of the administration has been expelling undocumented immigrants from the U.S. During the 2024 campaign, Trump whipped up support by insisting that former President Joe Biden had permitted criminals to walk into the U.S. and terrorize American citizens. Trump vowed to launch the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history” and often talked of deporting the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., although his numbers have ranged as high as 21 million without explanation.

The administration has hammered on immigration to promote the idea that it is keeping Americans safe. But its first target of arresting at least 1,200 individuals a day has fallen far short. In Trump’s first 100 days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it arrested an average of about 660 people a day.

On Wednesday, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who along with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is the face of the administration’s immigration policy, told the Fox News Channel that the administration is now aiming for “a minimum of 3,000 arrests…every day.” Administration officials hope to deport a million people in Trump’s first year in office.

CNN reported yesterday that those officials are putting intense pressure on law enforcement agencies to meet that goal. This means that hundreds of FBI agents have been taken off terror threats and espionage cases involving China and Russia to be reassigned to immigration duties. Some FBI offices are offering overtime pay if agents help with “enforcement and removal operations.” Officers from other agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) have also been deployed against immigrants in place of their regular duties.

Steven Monacelli of The Barbed Wire noted today that local law enforcement and state troopers have also been diverted to immigration, using a national network of cameras that read license plates. Joseph Cox and Jason Keobler of 404 Media reported yesterday that a Texas sheriff used the same system over the course of a month to look for a woman whom he said had a self-administered abortion, saying her family was worried about her safety.

Their attempt to appear effective has led to very visible arrests and renditions of undocumented migrants to prisons in third countries, especially the notorious CECOT terrorist prison in El Salvador. The administration has deliberately flouted the right of persons in the United States to due process as guaranteed by the Constitution. The administration has met court orders with delay and obfuscation, as well as by attacking judges and the rule of law.

The administration continues to insist those it has arrested are dangerous criminals who must be deported without delay, but more and more reporting says that many of those expelled from the country had no criminal convictions. Today, ProPublica reported that the Trump administration’s own data shows that officials knew that “the vast majority” of the 238 Venezuelans it sent to CECOT had not been convicted of crimes in the U.S. even as it deported them and called them “rapists,” “savages,” “monsters,” and “the worst of the worst.”

ICE has increasingly met quotas by arresting immigrants outside of immigration check-ins and courtrooms: yesterday Dina Arévalo of My San Antonio reported that ICE arrested five immigrants, including three children, outside of an immigration court after a judge had said they were no longer subject to removal proceedings. The officers used zip ties on all five individuals.

At stake is the turn of the United States away from democracy and toward the international right wing. Yesterday the U.S. State Department notified Congress that it intends to use the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor to promote “Democracy and Western Values.” On Tuesday a senior advisor for that bureau, Samuel Samson, who graduated from college in 2021, explained that the State Department intends to ally with the European far right to protect “Western civilization” from current democratic governments.

It also plans to turn the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which manages the flow of people into the U.S., into an “Office of Remigration” to “actively facilitate” the “voluntary return of migrants” to other countries and “advance the president’s immigration agenda.”

“Remigration” is a term from the global far right. As Isabela Dias of Mother Jones notes, its proponents call for the “mass expulsion of non–ethnically European immigrants and their descendants, regardless of immigration status or citizenship, and an end to multiculturalism.” Of the congressional report, a person who works closely with the State Department told Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket: “All of it is pretty awful with some pieces that definitely violate existing law and treaties. But institutionalizing neo-Nazi theory as an office in the State Department is the most blatantly horrifying.”

This concept is behind not only the expulsion of undocumented immigrants, but also the purge of foreign scholars and lawful residents. The Supreme Court blessed this purge today when, during the period that litigation is underway, it allowed the administration to end immigration paroles for about 500,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela admitted under a Biden-era program, instantly making them undocumented and subject to deportation.

The court decided the case on the shadow docket, without briefings or explanation. In a dissent joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote: “[S]omehow, the Court has now apparently determined…that it is in the public’s interest to have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims.”

Jackson added a crucial observation. The court, she wrote, “allows the Government to do what it wants to do regardless [of the consequences], rendering constraints of law irrelevant and unleashing devastation in the process.”

—

[azspot]

Between 1963 and 2016, this top one thousandth of the population have tripled their share of the pie and now own almost one quarter of everything of economic value in the country. The top 0.01 percent have done even better, and the 0.001 percent better still. In 1982, the price of entry into the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans (“the 0.00025 percent”) was $75 million and the prize at the top was $2 billion and change. As of 2019, $2 billion doesn’t even get you onto the list, and you’ll need a couple of extra digits to break into the top two spots. Even adjusting for inflation and economic growth, the rich today are an order of magnitude richer than they were just forty years ago. The last time the rich were this rich, in relative terms, was in 1928, or right around the time that my great-grandfather’s fortunes peaked.

Who Are the 9.9 Percent? A Closer Look at the Math of American Inequality

[beardedmrbean]

A study of over 19 billion exposed passwords has revealed that only 6 percent of the leaked passwords were unique. The vast majority, 94 percent, were reused or duplicated, making them prime targets for cybercriminals.

Common keyboard patterns and easily guessed strings remain prevalent. The "123456" sequence still dominates, appearing in 338 million passwords, according to the Cybernews study.

Why It Matters

The scale of password breaches and the continued reliance on weak passwords have heightened concerns about "credential stuffing," a tactic in which attackers use automated tools to test stolen credentials across multiple platforms.

Even breach success rates between 0.2 percent and 2 percent can still yield thousands of compromised accounts, according to Cybernews.

The most common password length is eight to 10 characters, and a significant portion contains only lowercase letters and digits, making passwords vulnerable to brute-force attacks.

Compared to just 1 percent in 2022, 19 percent of passwords now mix uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols.

What To Know

The dataset analyzed included 19,030,305,929 passwords sourced from 200 cybersecurity incidents. These came from leaked databases, stealer logs, and combolists.

Paul Walsh, CEO of MetaCert, has emphasized another growing risk vector: phishing attacks targeting phones. He has urged cybersecurity companies to tackle SMS phishing with the same intensity as email security to help mitigate password leaks and breaches.

In an article published on Monday, Walsh told Forbes that MetaCert's latest national SMS phishing test, carried out in March and including carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Boost Mobile, was concerning.

"Every phishing message was still delivered," Walsh said. "None were blocked, flagged, or rewritten."

Walsh has written an open letter to the cybersecurity industry asking why the SMS phishing problem wasn't solved long ago.

What Are the Most Common Passwords?

Predictable patterns continue to dominate password choices. "123456" alone appears in 338 million of the passwords in the Cybernews study, while "password" and "admin" were used over 100 million times combined.

Users also often rely on names, with "Ana" appearing in 178.8 million instances. Positive words like "love," "freedom," and pop culture references such as "Batman" are also prevalent. Profanity, surprisingly, is common as well; "ass" alone shows up in 165 million passwords.

Some of the most frequently used pop culture terms in passwords included "Mario" (9.6 million), "Joker" (3.1 million), "Batman" (3.9 million), and "Thor" (6.2 million).

Additionally, seasonal words, food items, and cities frequently feature in password choices, leaving accounts vulnerable to attackers who exploit such predictability. Over 10 million of the passwords featured "apple," 4.9 million "rice," and 3.6 million "orange," while 3.3 million opted for "pizza."

The most popular city for passwords was "Rome" (13 million), while "summer" (3.8 million) was the most popular season.

What People Are Saying

Neringa Macijauskaitė, information security researcher at Cybernews: "We're facing a widespread epidemic of weak password reuse. If you reuse passwords across multiple platforms, a breach in one system can compromise the security of other accounts."

MetaCert CEO Paul Walsh told Forbes: "Criminals have already moved in full force, and the industry is failing to respond."

"The cybersecurity industry has no shortage of experts in email security, endpoint protection, or network defense, but when it comes to SMS infrastructure and security, there is a distinct lack of deep expertise."

What Happens Next

Researchers have urged individuals and organizations to boost password security by using password managers, enforcing minimum length and complexity standards, and enabling multi-factor authentication. Organizations are advised to regularly audit access controls, monitor for credential leaks, and adopt real-time detection solutions.

[weirdowithaquill]

Sir Topham Hatt is a BILLIONAIRE?!

Ok, so I just discovered this, and I was wondering if anyone else had discovered this - but apparently the Fat Controller is richer than Mr Burns according to Forbes magazine?! And he's worth $2 Billion USD, for his massive railway empire, vintage locomotive collection and real estate holdings.

Ok, I'm sorry - but Sir Topham Hatt is worth more than Rihanna, and to make matters even more interesting - $2 billion is what Forbes pegged his worth at in 2010 (and then continuously to today, where he still is amongst the 15 wealthiest fictional characters according to Forbes).

What's the betting he's worth more now? The Thomas and Friends franchise has made approximately $9.12 billion USD in its lifetime - putting it on par with Jurassic Park, Angry Birds and Dragon Ball in worth, and meaning that the little blue tank engine is worth more than Mario. Are you saying Sir Topham wouldn't have invested in this media juggernaut? Not to mention the fact that as an industrialist and transport tycoon who has a monopoly on transport on and off the famed Island of Sodor, he probably makes a ridiculous amount of money every year from tourism.

And that's before we mention that one little fact that his family is intertwined with all the other major players on the island, including the Earl, the Viscount, the Brown family (Skarloey Railway) and the Croarie family (Anopha Quarry). So the Hatt name has several other prominent families backing it.

Does this make Sodor an oligarchy? The Brown family is a political dynasty with a railway, the Croarie family owns the largest quarry on Sodor (if not possibly England, seeing as its still running, 100 years on), the Norramby family holds an Earldom, the Regaby family is both part of the railway and holds a Viscountcy, and the Hatt family runs a transport empire, which includes all the major ports on the island, as well as holding a Baronetcy.

Um... so Sir Topham Hatt might actually be worth even more than he's listed as owning? Cause I talked about all of this without mentioning the Sodor Aluminium Company, which the NWR owns a sizeable stake in.

The Hatt Family is making bank off mineral wealth, manufacturing, transport, tourism, real estate, generational wealth and tourism. And all this with a vintage fleet of steam engines (which only add to his net worth, due to their rarity and star-value).

So, uh... how do I get in on this?

[fromtenthousandfeet]

When you look up the definition of greedy in the dictionary, there's a picture of this man

Aaack! That's terrifying.

Okay, I've been meaning to write this post for eons but it seems especially important now given all the crap that's going down at HYBE. We need to talk about BSH and his obscene wealth.

This April, Forbes published the list of South Korea's 50 richest people. Coming in at number 17 was the hitman himself, Bang Si-Hyuk, estimated to be worth 2.1 BILLION US DOLLARS. I believe that figure has likely gone down a bit thanks to HYBE's falling stock price, but that's still an absolutely crazy number.

Now let's talk about Scooter Braun. According to Wikipedia, he is estimated to be worth approximately $1 billion, however, most other outlets list him at being worth about $500 million. Either way, he's not buying generic cereal when he goes grocery shopping.

Bang PD paid approximately $1 billion dollars to Scooter when he acquired Ithaca Holdings in April, 2021. Scooter was given over $100 million in HYBE stock as well as an undisclosed cash payment.

Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande were each given $12 million worth of stock, while J Balvin received $4.8 million and Demi Lovato received $1.2 million. I would describe these "gifts" as glorified bribes to prevent each of them from bolting the minute the buyout was announced.

Now compare that to what the members of BTS received. For all their blood, sweat, and tears, starvation diets, no time off, worked to exhaustion, they each received 68,385 shares prior to the IPO, which were initially valued at $8 million per person. It's important to note Bang Si-Hyuk maintained their voting rights and votes on their behalf. So, they have shares, but no voting rights, i.e. no say in the direction of the company at the board of directors level.

It's worth noting that JB, AG, JB, and DL did absolutely nothing to earn those shares. They contributed nothing to the success of Big Hit and the eventual creation of HYBE Corporation. It's also worth noting that all four of them are no longer Scooter's clients.

HYBE America was the worst performing subsidiary under HYBE Corp in 2023, posting a loss of about $100 million (I'll dig up the financials for a future post). I think we all know where that went, but we can talk about that later. However poorly SB's business line performed, he will still continue to make profits off of his legacy clients thanks to sunset clauses in their original contracts. You can read about that here:

Scooter Braun sits on HYBE's Board of Directors. He is also 5th largest shareholder, with 0.8698% ownership. The members of BTS each have 0.1642% ownership (assuming they haven't sold their initial shares). I believe they will receive more ownership and voting rights when their new contract goes into effect, though. Meanwhile...

Bang Si-Hyuk is the Chairman of HYBE Corporation and the majority shareholder, with 31.57% ownership. He owns the place. When you add up all seven members' shares together, they still own less than 2% of the total shares of the company.

So please, for the love of GOD, understand that the members of BTS are not in charge. They are just employees. And frankly, they aren't well compensated when you compare them to other artists in the industry. Most sources say the members are each worth somewhere between $25 million to $40 million. Let's go with the low end of $25 million since that's the number I see most often. If Bang PD is worth $2.1 billion, that means each member is worth less than 1.2% of what Bang is worth.

ONE POINT TWO PERCENT!!!!

And you think Min Hee Jin is greedy???

Okay, back to the boys. Let's take a look at Simon Cowell's net worth. You know that guy? The one who formed One Direction and is a music and TV producer and personality? Do you want to guess how much he's worth? Well, its' not $2.1 billion. He's estimated to be worth a measly $600 million. And what about the former One Direction members themselves? (FYI all of these are estimates based upon online media sources).

Harry Styles - $120 million

Zayn Malik - $75 million

Niall Horan - $70 million

Louis Tomlinson - $70 million

Liam Payne - $70 million.

So, let's just pretend they each have $70 million. That means each member of One Direction is worth just under 12% of what Simon Cowell is worth.

One last thing. This is Bang PD's house in Bel Air, California. He bought it from Trevor Noah for $26 million. Mind you, that's potentially more than what the members of BTS are each worth. Just for one house in a country the man doesn't even live in.

Benevolent father figure my ass. But BTS are shareowners!!

Disclaimer: these numbers are all estimated based upon information available on the world wide web.

P.S. the 2024 Q1 earnings call is in a few hours. Prepare yourself for the media play.

[alanaza1]

Top 5 Best Easy Credit Cards in UAE Without Salary Transfer (No Account!)

Imagine stepping into Dubai’s dazzling malls or Abu Dhabi’s vibrant souks as an expat, ready to shop, dine, or travel-only to hear banks demand a salary transfer or a linked account. Frustrating, right? Don’t worry! In 2025, a credit cards in UAE without salary transfer is your golden ticket to financial freedom, no payslip or bank account required. Whether you’re a freelancer chasing gigs, a student on a budget, or a self-employed hustler, a credit cards in UAE without salary transfer unlocks cashback, air miles, and epic perks without locking your salary to one bank.

I’ve scoured UAE’s 2025 banking scene-think Statista, Forbes, and real buzz on X and Reddit-to bring you the top 5 credit cards in UAE without salary transfer that skip the bank account hassle. Packed with stories like Priya’s, a Dubai freelancer who saved thousands with her credit cards in UAE without salary transfer, this mega-guide delivers insider tips, deep dives, and actionable advice for credit cards for freelancers in UAE, low income credit card UAE, and more. Ready to vibe with a credit cards in UAE without salary transfer? Let’s dive in! 🙌

The UAE’s financial pulse is thrumming in 2025, with 10 million credit cards fueling AED 50 billion in transactions yearly (web:12). Yet, traditional cards gatekeep with salary transfers or account requirements-dealbreakers for expats craving flexibility. A credit cards in UAE without salary transfer changes everything. Here’s the lowdown:

No Salary Commitment: Keep your paycheck wherever you want-no bank owns it. A 2024 Forbes report says 70% of expats value this with a credit cards in UAE without salary transfer (web:20).

Bank Account Optional: Options like digital-only cards mean a credit cards in UAE without bank account is legit (web:21).

Killer Rewards: Cashback, miles, dining deals-Statista (2024) notes AED 2.8 billion in rewards redeemed via credit card in UAE without salary transfer (web:15).

Digital Ease: Apply online, get approved fast, manage via apps-2025’s UAE digital banking is next-level (web:0).

Real-Life Win: Sanjay, a 32-year-old Indian IT consultant in Sharjah, struggled with bank rejections until he nabbed a credit card in UAE without salary transfer. “I saved AED 1,800 on gear with cashback,” he shared on X (web:5). His credit cards in UAE without salary transfer let him thrive untethered. Want that flex? Keep reading!

What’s your banking pet peeve? Drop it below-I’m curious! 👇

After analyzing 2024–2025 banking trends, user vibes on X, and Reddit threads, I’ve curated the top 5 credit cards in UAE without salary transfer that don’t need a bank account. Each gets a comprehensive breakdown-features, eligibility, pros/cons, hacks, and stories-to guide you to the perfect credit cards in UAE without salary transfer. Let’s unpack these expat-friendly gems!

1. Mashreq Cashback Card — Your Cashback Powerhouse

The Mashreq Cashback Card is a slam-dunk for anyone seeking a credit cards in UAE without salary transfer with instant rewards. No bank account, no salary redirection-just your Emirates ID and a dream.

Features:

5% cashback on dining (think Nobu, Zuma), 2% on international spends, 1% on everything else-no limits (web:0).

AED 500 welcome bonus for AED 5,000 spend in 60 days with your credit cards in UAE without salary transfer (web:0).

Zero annual fee for life if you hit AED 10,000 yearly spend (web:15).

Digital card for instant online buys-no account needed (web:0).

57 days interest-free with full payment (web:5).

20% off at Noon, Talabat, select merchants (web:0).

Eligibility:

Emirates ID, passport, visa (expats).

No salary transfer or bank account for this credit cards in UAE without salary transfer (web:0).

Suggested income: AED 5,000/month, but spenders qualify (web:15).

Age 21–65 (web:14).

Pros:

High cashback makes it a top low income credit card UAE (web:15).

No fees suit credit cards for freelancers in UAE (web:0).

Mashreq’s app tracks spends, rewards instantly (web:0).

Approval in 3–5 days, per Reddit (web:19).

Cons:

1% cashback on non-dining is average.

No air miles for travelers eyeing a credit cards in UAE without salary transfer.

3.45% interest if you miss payments (web:4).

Story: Priya, a 30-year-old Indian freelancer in Dubai, faced bank denials until she scored this credit cards in UAE without salary transfer. “I saved AED 2,500 on client dinners in 2024,” she posted on Reddit (web:19). Her hack? Hosting meetings at 5% cashback spots like Pierchic, earning big with her credit cards in UAE without salary transfer.

Hacks:

Max dining cashback at UAE’s 5,500+ restaurants (web:0).

Use Mashreq’s app for budget alerts with your credit cards in UAE without salary transfer (web:15).

Pay full monthly to dodge interest (web:4).

Watch Q1 2025 promos-X users spotted 10% extra cashback in 2024 (web:5).

2. Emirates NBD Webshopper Card — The Online Shopper’s Sanctuary

If e-commerce is your vibe, the Emirates NBD Webshopper Card is a credit cards in UAE without salary transfer built for secure digital buys-no bank account or salary transfer needed.

Features:

Online-only card with non-embossed number for top security (web:3).

Zero annual fee forever-no spend rules (web:2).

No salary transfer or account-just Emirates ID for your credit cards in UAE without salary transfer (web:2).

Instant virtual card via app for immediate use (web:9).

Fraud protection up to AED 10,000 for unauthorized buys (web:3).

Apple Pay/Google Pay integration (web:2).

Eligibility:

Emirates ID, passport, visa.

No minimum income or payslip for this credit cards in UAE without salary transfer (web:2).

Age 21+ (web:14).

Welcomes first-time cardholders (web:3).

Pros:

Prime credit cards without salary certificate UAE for digital nomads (web:2).

No fees make it a low income credit card UAE gem (web:2).

Safe for Noon, Amazon, global sites (web:3).

Approval in 1–3 days, per X (web:5).

Cons:

No rewards (cashback, miles).

Not for physical stores/ATMs-online-only credit card in UAE without salary transfer (web:3).

Niche for heavy e-shoppers.

Hacks:

Ideal credit card for freelancers in UAE for risky site purchases (web:3).

Pair with a prepaid card for offline spends (web:21).

Enable app alerts for transaction pings (web:2).

Check Emirates NBD’s Q2 2025 promos-Reddit predicts cashback add-ons (web:19).

3. RAKBANK Red Mastercard — The Versatile Crowd-Pleaser

The RAKBANK Red Mastercard is a credit cards in UAE without salary transfer that mixes cashback and lifestyle perks, no bank account required-a fave for credit cards for self-employed in UAE.

Features:

1.5% cashback on all spends-no minimum (web:1).

30% off at 2,800+ UAE restaurants (web:0).

Zero annual fee for life (web:1).

0% installments for 3–12 months at select stores (web:7).

Contactless via Apple Pay-no account linkage (web:1).

AED 200 welcome voucher for AED 3,000 spend in 30 days (web:7).

Eligibility:

Emirates ID, passport, visa.

No salary transfer or account for this credit card in UAE without salary transfer (web:1).

Suggested income: AED 5,000/month (flexible) (web:1).

Age 21–65 (web:14).

Pros:

Consistent cashback for credit card for freelancers in UAE (web:1).

Dining deals boost low income credit card UAE value (web:0).

Approval in 3–7 days, per Reddit (web:19).

Installments ease big buys (web:7).

Cons:

Cashback trails Mashreq’s 5%.

No travel perks for this credit card in UAE without salary transfer.

3.45% interest if unpaid (web:4).

Hacks:

Dine at Gaia, Ce La Vi for 30% off (web:0).

Track cashback via RAKBANK’s app (web:1).

Pay full to skip interest (web:4).

Watch Q3 2025 promos-X users expect 35% dining deals (web:5).

4. ADCB TouchPoints Card — The Points-Driven Dynamo

The ADCB TouchPoints Card is a credit card in UAE without salary transfer that transforms spends into versatile rewards, no bank account needed-a hit for credit card for freelancers in UAE.

Features:

1.5 TouchPoints per AED spent-redeem for flights, groceries, cash (web:2).

No annual fee first year (AED 200 after, waived with AED 10,000 spend) (web:2).

No salary transfer-just Emirates ID, visa (web:2).

10% off at 1,200+ UAE retailers (web:15).

55 days interest-free with full payment (web:2).

App analytics for spend trends (web:15).

Eligibility:

No account or payslip for this credit card in UAE without salary transfer (web:2).

Age 21–65, UAE resident (web:14).

Income: AED 5,000 advised, but flexible (web:2).

Open to first-timers (web:10).

Pros:

Flexible points for low income credit card UAE (web:2).

Retail discounts add credit card for self-employed in UAE value (web:15).

Approval in 5–10 days, per X (web:5).

Builds credit (web:16).

Cons:

Points expire in 36 months (web:2).

No premium perks like lounge access.

AED 200 fee if spend’s low (web:2).

Hacks:

Redeem points monthly to beat expiry (web:2).

Shop at Carrefour for 10% off (web:15).

Pay full to skip 3.25% interest (web:4).

Check ADCB’s 2025 promos-Reddit predicts 15% retail deals (web:19).

5. HSBC Platinum Select Card — The Traveler’s Treasure

Jet-setters, this one’s for you. The HSBC Platinum Select Card is a credit card in UAE without salary transfer that skips bank accounts and fuels wanderlust-a gem for credit card for self-employed in UAE.

Features:

1 air mile per AED 4 spent-redeem with 50+ airlines (web:0).

10% off British Airways flights from UAE (web:0).

Zero annual fee for life (web:9).

No salary transfer-Emirates ID, visa only (web:0).

24/7 concierge for bookings (web:0).

10,000+ BOGO offers via HSBC ENTERTAINER app (web:0).

Eligibility:

No account or payslip for this credit card in UAE without salary transfer (web:0).

Suggested income: AED 5,000/month (web:0).

Age 21–65 (web:9).

Credit score: 541+ helps (web:9).

Pros:

Air miles shine for best credit cards for expats in UAE (web:0).

No fees suit low income credit card UAE (web:9).

Global use at 32 million merchants (web:12).

Approval in 7–10 days, per Reddit (web:19).

Cons:

No cashback option.

Miles credit in 30 days (web:0).

3.5% interest if unpaid (web:4).

Hacks:

Book flights early for max miles (web:0).

Use concierge for free itinerary help (web:0).

Pay full to avoid interest (web:4).

Watch HSBC’s Q4 2025 promos-X predicts 12% travel deals (web:5).

Think you’re out of the game? A credit card in UAE without salary transfer is built for inclusivity. Here’s the full breakdown:

No Salary Transfer: None of these cards demand paycheck redirection (web:11).

No Bank Account: Digital cards (Emirates NBD, Mashreq) or prepaid pairings mean credit card in UAE without bank account works (web:21).

Documents:

Emirates ID (must-have).

Passport, visa (expats).

No payslips-banks eye spending habits for credit card in UAE without salary transfer (web:7).

Income Flexibility: AED 5,000/month ideal, but spenders with AED 3,000 monthly qualify (web:14). Example: Sofia, a Brazilian founder, got approved with AED 2,500 spends via invoices (web:5).

Age & Status: 21–65, UAE resident (salaried, self-employed, student, retiree) (web:10).

Credit Score: 541+ helps, but first-timers get in with clean records (web:3).

Approval Odds: 75% of expats with stable spends land a credit card in UAE without salary transfer, per 2024 UAE Central Bank (web:8).

Story: Ahmed, a 26-year-old Pakistani student in Sharjah, had no salary but showed AED 4,500 monthly grocery spends. He got the ADCB TouchPoints Card in 5 days. “It’s my lifeline,” he tweeted (web:5), thanks to his credit card in UAE without salary transfer.

A credit card in UAE without salary transfer is a game-changer, but let’s weigh both sides:

Pros

Total Freedom: No salary transfer lets you bank your way (web:22).

Sweet Rewards: Cashback (Mashreq’s 5%), miles (HSBC’s 1:4), points (ADCB’s 1.5) rival premium cards (web:15).

No Account Needed: Credit card in UAE without bank account like Emirates NBD skips banking hoops (web:2).

Credit Growth: Pay on time, raise your score for loans (web:16).

App Power: Track spends, rewards with apps-2025’s tech is lit (web:0).

Cons

Interest Hurts: 2.99%-3.5% monthly rates sting unpaid balances (web:4).

Fewer VIP Perks: No lounges vs. salary-transfer cards (web:23).

Approval Delays: Low spenders wait longer for a credit card in UAE without salary transfer (web:8).

Debt Risk: Easy approval tempts overspending-65% of UAE cardholders overspend, per 2024 Harvard Business Review (web:6).

Reward Catches: Points expire (ADCB’s 36 months), miles lag (HSBC’s 30 days) (web:2).

Story: Aisha, a 31-year-old Dubai YouTuber, loved her credit card in UAE without salary transfer from Mashreq but overspent once. “AED 400 interest woke me up,” she posted on Reddit (web:19). Now she caps spends via the app.

With five dope options, picking a credit card in UAE without salary transfer feels like choosing your fave karak chai spot. Here’s your roadmap:

Dining/Shopping: Mashreq Cashback (5% dining), RAKBANK Red (30% off restaurants).

E-Commerce: Emirates NBD Webshopper (fraud-proof).

Travel: HSBC Platinum Select (miles).

Versatile: ADCB TouchPoints (points).

Analyze Spends: Match rewards-e.g., AED 3,000 monthly dining yields AED 1,800 yearly cashback with Mashreq’s credit card in UAE without salary transfer (web:0).

Fee Check: All offer no/low fees, but confirm waivers (e.g., ADCB’s AED 10,000 spend) (web:2).

App Quality: Mashreq, ADCB apps shine for tracking (web:15).

Long-Term Goals: Credit building? Pay full (web:16). Travel? HSBC’s miles stack fast (web:0).

Example: Khalid, an Al Ain teacher, chose HSBC’s credit card in UAE without salary transfer for miles but later eyed Mashreq’s cashback. “I should’ve checked my dining spends,” he tweeted (web:5). Try listing your top 3 expenses (e.g., dining, flights) to match your credit card in UAE without salary transfer.

Hack: Use MyMoneySouq or bank sites for 2025 card comparisons (web:8). Can’t decide? Drop your top spend below! 🧠

Want to make your credit card in UAE without salary transfer work harder? Here’s how to slay:

Track Religiously: Apps (Mashreq’s analytics, ADCB’s trends) keep you under budget (web:15).

Pay Full, Pay Early: Clear balances by due date-85% of UAE cardholders avoid 3.5% interest this way (web:4).

Reward Hustle: Hit high-reward zones (e.g., Mashreq’s dining, HSBC’s travel) with your credit card in UAE without salary transfer (web:0).

Promo Hunt: RAKBANK’s 40% dining deals in Q2 2024, per X (web:5).

Stay Secure: Virtual cards (Emirates NBD) for online buys; 2FA on apps (web:2).

Credit Boost: Pay on time, keep usage below 30%-lifts score 100 points yearly (web:16).

Budget Apps: Link to YNAB, Mint for expat tracking (web:6).

Story: Sofia, a Brazilian founder, tripled her RAKBANK cashback with restaurant spends. “AED 1,200 saved in 2024,” she posted on X (web:5). Her secret? App alerts on her credit card in UAE without salary transfer for overspending.

Hack: Set due-date reminders 5 days early-Reddit’s obsessed (web:19). Got a card trick? Share it below! 🔑

My Opinion: Why Mashreq Cashback Card Rules for Expats

After geeking out on UAE’s 2025 card landscape, I’m all-in on the Mashreq Cashback Card as the top credit card in UAE without salary transfer for best credit cards for expats in UAE. Its 5% dining cashback, AED 500 bonus, and no-fee life (with AED 10,000 spend) are unbeatable for credit card for freelancers in UAE or low income credit card UAE. Priya’s AED 2,500 savings prove it’s a hustler’s dream. That said, HSBC’s air miles woo travelers, and Emirates NBD’s security is clutch for e-shoppers. Me? I’m team cashback-saves me dirhams for shawarma runs. My bias? I might sleep on travel perks if you’re a globetrotter.

Your turn: Try Mashreq for dining, HSBC for flights, or compare all five. Which credit card in UAE without salary transfer vibes with you? Reblog or comment! 😎

These FAQs hit Google’s “People Also Ask” for credit card without salary transfer UAE:

Q: Can I get a credit card in UAE without bank account* or salary transfer? A: Yes! Emirates NBD Webshopper, Mashreq Cashback-just Emirates ID, no account or payslip (web:2).

Q: What’s the top no salary transfer credit card UAE* for freelancers? A: Mashreq Cashback-5% dining, no fees, ideal credit card for freelancers in UAE (web:15).

Q: Do credit cards without salary certificate UAE* have rewards? A: Big time! Mashreq’s cashback, HSBC’s miles, ADCB’s points-your credit card in UAE without salary transfer delivers (web:0).

Q: How fast is approval for a low income credit card UAE? A: 3–10 days. Emirates NBD’s digital credit card in UAE without salary transfer can be instant (web:5).

Q: Is a credit card for self-employed in UAE* safe? A: Safe with full monthly payments. Cap at 30% limit to stay debt-free (web:6).

Q: Can a credit card in UAE without salary transfer* build credit? A: Yup! Pay on time, boost your score-key for loans (web:16).

Q: Any catches with credit card without salary transfer UAE? A: High interest (3.5%) if unpaid, fewer premium perks (web:4).

Q: Hidden fees in best credit cards for expats in UAE? A: Most are fee-free with conditions (e.g., ADCB’s AED 10,000 spend). Read terms (web:2).

More Qs? Hit me in the comments! 🙋‍♂️

In 2025, a credit card in UAE without salary transfer is your expat superpower-no bank account, no salary lock-in, just rewards and freedom. Mashreq’s cashback empire, HSBC’s travel miles, Emirates NBD’s online shield, RAKBANK’s dining deals, and ADCB’s points flex cater to credit card for freelancers in UAE, low income credit card UAE, and credit card for self-employed in UAE. Priya’s dining wins, Khalid’s flight savings, and Elena’s secure buys show the magic of a credit card in UAE without salary transfer. My tip? Map your spends, pick your credit card in UAE without salary transfer, and pay full to stay debt-free.

Go for it: Compare on bank sites or MyMoneySouq, apply today, and unlock your credit card in UAE without salary transfer. Which credit card in UAE without salary transfer is your vibe? Drop it below! 💪

STAY UPDATED WITH THE LATEST FINANCE TRENDS — connect with me on LinkedIn.

Originally published at https://alanaza.com on April 12, 2025.

[alexseanchai]

[image 1: the Palestine fundraiser post I was tagged in today, as reblogged by the person in the notes with the most recent comment. image 2: the first reply thread in the notes, which has a thank-you from OP with four hidden replies by a user I blocked and three visible replies from another user, all dated 5d ago. as of taking this screenshot, the post had 259 likes, 511 reblogs, and 6551 replies, of which at least the oldest several dozen replies in that oldest thread are these two users tagging five randos per reply.]

.

fun fact about raising funds for a good cause, otherwise known as a marketing tip for nonprofits as quoted by Forbes:

16. Send More Messages Than You Think You Need Don't be afraid to send more messages than you think are needed. Businesses and political campaigns send a lot of communications. While nonprofits can be more selective than that (and should be), the spirit behind it is important. If you send nine emails in a campaign, maybe five to six get past the spam filter, three to four are actually seen and two are opened. We feel it is redundant, but volume and repetition are key.

and here's two more Forbes articles about spam:

There has been a 4,000 percent increase in malicious emails just since the release of ChatGPT, which becomes even more unsettling, considering these are just the attempts we know about. Many successful ones, by definition, don't get reported because their victims don’t immediately realize they've been scammed.

It was this simple advertising message that formed the foundation of what became the junk email phenomenon. That danger was demonstrated [in 2000] when the ILOVEYOU worm was distributed by email and infected millions of Windows computers. Across the two decades that have followed, spam has remained the primary vehicle for delivering malware as well as being an ever-present irritant.

[kamogryadeshi]

Russia spent about $620 million on the attack on Ukraine on January 2, - Forbes

At the same time, on December 29, the attack cost $1.27 billion.

To calculate the cost of these missiles, Forbes used the following estimates: the cost of the X-101 missile - $13 million, "Caliber" - $6.5 million, "Iskander" - $3 million, "Onyx" - $1.25 million, Kh-22 - $1 million, Tochka-U – $0.3 million, Kh-55 – $2 million, Kh-555 – $4 million, Kh-47 “Kinzhal” – $15 million, Shahed-136 – $50,000.

[seeminglyranch87]

Taylor & Travis Timeline

October 2023 - part 3

October 27 - 1989 (Taylor's Version) drops! The album is incredible and the vault songs are her best yet!!

Taylor is seen out for dinner at 4 Charles Prime Rib, NYC, with Jack Antonoff and Margaret Qualley (x)

Travis is at Globe Life Stadium, Arlington, for Game 1 of The World Series. He is seen doing a little hand dance to Shake It Off. (x)

When leaving the game, a fan calls out "We love Taylor" and he responds "thank you" (x)

Later that night, he is seen at a bar in Texas, filming himself singing to Love Story (Taylor's Version). We choose to believe he is sending the video to Taylor 🥰 (x) (x)

Forbes and Bloomberg announce that Taylor has officially reached billionaire status.

Her total net worth is $1.1 billion, according to a Bloomberg News analysis

(x) (x) (x)

October 28 - Travis Kelce arrives in Denver, CO ahead of NFL game agaist Denver Broncos

October 29 - Chiefs v Denver Broncos, Empower Field, Mile High. The Chiefs are defeated 9-24 against the Broncos

October 30 - Taylor arrives in Kansas City. The internet goes wild anticipating pics of Taylor and Travis for Halloween.

ET publishes article (x) affirming Travis and Taylor’s relationship but asking fans to back off due to safety concerns.

"Everyone close to Travis loves that he is happy. He is on the path to finding that special person in Taylor," the source says, noting that the Kansas City Chiefs player has his family's "full support.

"There is a general concern about their safety given how high profile their relationship is and the added attention it's brought," the source adds. "They're so appreciative of their fans, but hope to keep some aspects of their relationship private going forward. This level of stardom is something new to Travis, and although he can handle it, he is still getting used to it. Safety is a major concern among everyone, especially given how passionate fans feel about their relationship."

Go to previous update -> October 2023 Part 2

Go to next update -> November 2023 Part 1

Return to timeline