Tahnoun bin Zayed: The Enigmatic Billionaire Behind the UAE’s Surveillance Empire

Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a prominent member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, is often described as a shadowy figure with vast wealth and the mastermind behind the UAE’s surveillance and espionage technologies.

In a detailed article, Wired magazine’s renowned journalist Bradley Hope explored the enigmatic life of Tahnoun bin Zayed, who is rarely seen without his signature dark sunglasses. He serves as the UAE’s National Security Advisor and head of intelligence in one of the richest and most surveillance-driven nations on earth. He is also the younger brother of President and absolute ruler Mohammed bin Zayed.

The magazine pointed out that, beyond his intelligence role, what sets Tahnoun apart is his official control over a significant portion of Abu Dhabi’s immense sovereign wealth.

According to Bloomberg News, Tahnoun directly manages a financial empire worth $1.5 trillion—an amount exceeding the personal wealth of nearly anyone else on the planet.

His persona is a fusion of three identities: part Gulf prince, part fitness-obsessed tech entrepreneur, and part villain straight out of a James Bond film.

Tahnoun runs multiple business ventures and leads a massive tech conglomerate known as G42—a name inspired by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where “42” is famously the ultimate answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

G42 operates across various sectors, from artificial intelligence and biotechnology to cybersecurity, with a strong emphasis on government-backed surveillance and hacking technologies.

A devoted practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and cycling, Tahnoun is known to wear his sunglasses even at the gym due to his light sensitivity. He surrounds himself with UFC champions and elite mixed martial artists.

A businessman and a security consultant who have met him reveal that those fortunate enough to bypass his tight security may only get a chance to speak with him after accompanying him on a cycling lap around his private racetrack.

Tahnoun is also known for his fascination with longevity. He reportedly spends hours in a sensory deprivation tank and even brought longevity expert Peter Attia to the UAE for personal consultations.

One businessman who attended his talks claimed that Tahnoun influenced Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to quit fast food and join him in a quest to extend life expectancy—possibly up to 150 years.

However, in recent years, Sheikh Tahnoun has shifted focus to a new, grander mission. His former obsessions with chess and technology have evolved into an ambitious multi-billion-dollar initiative: transforming Abu Dhabi into a dominant force in artificial intelligence. And the industry he is looking to invest in is none other than the American tech sector itself.

In the intensifying AI arms race, the United States currently holds a strategic advantage for one key reason: a single American company, Nvidia, manufactures the advanced chips required to train the most sophisticated AI models. The U.S. government has since imposed restrictions on the export of these high-tech processors, limiting who can access them beyond its borders.

To capitalize on this clear, though unstable, advantage over China, the leaders of America’s AI giants have embarked on global tours to persuade the world’s wealthiest investors—figures like Tahnoun—to fund what amounts to an unprecedented wave of AI infrastructure development.

Every AI-powered service relies on massive data centers: hundreds of racks filled with servers, consuming energy at tens or even hundreds of times the rate of standard internet searches. To meet the soaring demand, AI companies need more data centers worldwide—along with the land to build them, water to cool them, electricity to power them, and the advanced chips to drive them.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang predicts that tech companies will invest $1 trillion in building new AI data centers over the next five years.

Developing the next generation of AI requires enormous capital, vast real estate, and immense energy resources—all of which the three Gulf states possess.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar have all recently launched large AI investment funds, but the UAE has emerged as the ideal partner due to its immense wealth, newly built nuclear power plant, and rapidly advancing AI sector.

However, a major issue looms: any American AI partnership with the UAE would, in effect, mean a partnership with Sheikh Tahnoun himself—whose alliances in recent years had been primarily with China.

As an intelligence chief with vast economic influence, Tahnoun spent the early 2020s forging deep commercial and personal ties with Beijing. Some of his company G42’s products, including surveillance software sold by its subsidiary Presight AI, bore a striking resemblance to the systems used by Chinese police.

Huawei’s presence within G42 was so extensive that its engineers had unrestricted access to Abu Dhabi’s most sensitive tech facilities.

But in August 2023, Washington drew a red line, banning the export of Nvidia’s AI chips to the Middle East—chips Abu Dhabi desperately needed for its AI ambitions. Any entity using Huawei equipment was denied access. That’s when Tahnoun abruptly changed course.

In early 2024, G42 announced it would sever ties with China and remove all Chinese equipment. Chinese experts quietly began leaving Abu Dhabi’s tech sector, marking the start of a new phase in UAE-U.S. relations. Meanwhile, teams of advisors and lawyers in Washington worked to rebrand Tahnoun as a reliable partner the U.S. could entrust with its technology.

UAE Ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, leveraged his political connections to advocate for Tahnoun. At the same time, the U.S. government and tech leaders sought to channel billions in Emirati investments into the American AI industry. In April 2024, Microsoft announced a $1.5 billion investment in G42 in exchange for a minority stake in the company—a move aimed at positioning G42 as a Huawei alternative.

The first phase of the deal granted G42 access to Microsoft’s cloud-based AI services via a UAE-based data center. Microsoft President Brad Smith even joined G42’s board, effectively placing an American overseer within the company.

This deal served as a U.S. government endorsement of expanded business with the UAE. However, despite the financial commitments, Emirati funds had yet to flow significantly, and Abu Dhabi had not secured access to Nvidia’s chips.

In the summer of 2024, Tahnoun launched a PR campaign across the U.S., including a visit to Elon Musk in Texas, a Jiu-Jitsu session with Mark Zuckerberg, consecutive meetings with Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos, and high-level discussions at the White House with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and even President Joe Biden.

Tahnoun’s efforts to gain American trust seemed to be succeeding—until U.S. national security officials warned against easing restrictions on AI chip exports to the UAE.

A former U.S. national security official cautioned, “The Emiratis are masters of maneuvering. The real question everyone is asking: Are they playing both sides?”

In July 2024, Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued an open letter calling for “tighter national security safeguards” before approving any sensitive AI technology exports to the UAE.

Eva Galperin, Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, stated, “The UAE is an authoritarian state with a horrific human rights record and a long history of using technology to spy on activists, journalists, and dissidents. There’s no doubt they want to shape AI’s development—but not in ways that serve democracy or shared human values. Rather, it’s for the benefit of police states.”

As Tahnoun maneuvered in Washington, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was hosting some of the world’s top tech thinkers—including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt—at his lavish South African retreat to discuss Saudi Arabia’s AI future.

After that, Schmidt visited the White House to warn that America lacked sufficient electricity to compete with China in artificial intelligence. He suggested that the Biden administration strengthen ties with energy-rich Canada. Then, in a meeting with Stanford students, he said:

“The alternative is that the Arabs fund AI, and I personally like the Arabs… but they won’t adhere to our national security rules.”

However, concerns about the reliability of Gulf states as allies (and their tendency toward questionable practices such as targeting journalists and waging proxy wars) did not stop their money from flowing into American tech companies. Last year, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced a $40 billion fund focused on AI investments, backed by a strategic partnership with the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Additionally, Kingdom Holding Company—an investment firm run by a Saudi prince fully loyal to the Crown Prince—emerged as one of the largest investors in Elon Musk’s startup, xAI.

The New York Times wrote that the Saudi fund made the kingdom “the world’s biggest investor in artificial intelligence.” But in September, the UAE surpassed it: Abu Dhabi announced the creation of a new AI investment entity called MGX, partnering with BlackRock, Microsoft, and Global Infrastructure Partners to inject over $100 billion into projects that include building a network of data centers and power plants across the United States.

Reports also indicated that MGX—part of Sheikh Tahnoon’s sovereign portfolio—was in “preliminary talks” with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about a $5 to $7 trillion chip manufacturing project aimed at creating an alternative to Nvidia’s scarce processors.

The flow of Emirati funds had become unrestricted. In return, just days after MGX’s announcement, Semafor reported that the U.S. had approved the sale of Nvidia chips to G42, with some chips already delivered to Abu Dhabi, including a “large order of Nvidia H100s.”

Through this deal, Tahnoon secured some of the hardware he needed to build his new Hydra, raising two crucial questions:

What game is Sheikh Tahnoon playing this time?
And how exactly did he amass all this wealth?

At a certain level, every story about Gulf royal families is a story of succession—about patriarchal families trying to fend off external threats and internal rivalries emerging when power transitions become contested.

Tahnoon and his brother Mohammed are both sons of the UAE’s first president, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan—a figure revered in the Emirates as the “Father of the Nation.”

For much of Zayed’s life, Abu Dhabi was little more than a harsh, barren fishing village with saline water supplies and a few thousand Bedouin inhabitants. The rest of the emirate consisted of nomadic desert tribes numbering just a few thousand more.

The Al Nahyan family collected revenue from taxes and tributes, acting as guardians of shared resources. Their standard of living was not significantly higher than their tribal members, but staying in power was perilous—two of Abu Dhabi’s last four rulers were assassinated by their own brothers, while a third was killed by a rival tribe.

Zayed himself seized power from his older brother in a bloodless 1966 coup, backed by the British, just as Abu Dhabi’s oil wealth began flowing in.

His brother had been reluctant to spend the emirate’s newfound riches, but Zayed embraced modernization and development, uniting the tribes under a single banner—paving the way for the UAE’s formation in 1971.

By the time the UAE was founded, Tahnoon was around three years old. As one of Zayed’s twenty sons, he belonged to an elite group known as Bani Fatima—the six sons of Zayed’s favorite wife, Fatima, who were seen as his most important heirs.

Zayed sent these sons abroad to broaden their worldviews and prepare them for the UAE’s future, but at the same time, he ensured that oil wealth was distributed among the Bedouin tribes. He also kept his heirs away from business ventures and self-enrichment, likely as a safeguard against the assassinations and coups that had plagued his predecessors. He wanted to avoid the perception that the Al Nahyan family was unfairly profiting from its role as the state’s guardians.

In the mid-1990s, Tahnoon found himself in Southern California.

One day in 1995, he walked into a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym in San Diego, asking to train. He introduced himself as “Ben.” According to a report on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Eastern Europe, he was eager to show humility—arriving early, helping with cleaning, and only later revealing that he was a prince from Abu Dhabi.

As Sheikh Zayed’s health declined in the late 1990s, his sons began assuming larger roles—breaking his directive by founding their own business ventures.

During this period, Tahnoon launched his first holding company, Royal Group, which he later used to develop the Hydra chess computer. He also founded a robotics company that built a humanoid robot named Reem C, named after an island in Abu Dhabi where he invested in real estate.

When Sheikh Zayed passed away in 2004, Tahnoon’s eldest brother, Khalifa, became the new ruler of Abu Dhabi and president of the UAE, while Mohammed, the eldest of Bani Fatima, became crown prince.

The rest of the sons took on various official roles, though their responsibilities remained ambiguous.

Between 2008 and 2011, I had a hobby as a journalist in Abu Dhabi: “Sheikh-watching.”

It was a Gulf version of Kremlinology—deciphering statements and decisions, speaking with palace insiders who might occasionally leak secrets.

At the time, Tahnoon seemed curious yet distant from real power—without any serious government role, appearing more preoccupied with amassing wealth, investing in technology, and reshaping Abu Dhabi’s skyline.

But everything changed when he emerged as one of the Al Nahyan family’s best players in exploiting a new tool of state power: electronic surveillance.

In July 2009, thousands of BlackBerry users in the UAE noticed their phones overheating dangerously.

The cause? A supposed software update from Etisalat, the UAE’s largest telecom provider.

But in reality, this update was spyware—an early mass surveillance experiment that spectacularly failed when BlackBerry’s parent company exposed the scheme.

I experienced it firsthand on a drive from Abu Dhabi to Dubai—when I put my BlackBerry to my ear, it was so hot it nearly burned my face.

This was my first direct encounter with the hidden police state of the UAE.

The signs of this reality are clear to anyone who has spent time in the Gulf. Armed crime is virtually nonexistent, and life can be smooth—even luxurious. But in times of tension or risk, these places can become extremely dangerous—especially for residents who dare to hint at opposition.

The Arab Spring of 2011, which toppled four Middle Eastern dictators through Twitter-organized mass protests, reinforced the UAE’s determination to crush any democratic stirrings.

When a small group of Emirati activists called for political reforms and human rights in 2011, the state charged them with insulting the ruling family, then later pardoned and released them—though they continued to live under constant surveillance and harassment.

There is no evidence that Tahnoon was directly involved in the BlackBerry scandal, but he soon took control of an empire capable of developing far more sophisticated spy tools.

In 2013, he was appointed Deputy National Security Advisor—just as the UAE’s ambitions to spy on its citizens and enemies were becoming a massive project.

Project Raven’s Targeting of Emirati Activist Ahmed Mansoor
Agents of Project Raven targeted Emirati human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor—one of those who called for democratic reform during the Arab Spring—through his son’s baby monitor.

In 2016, Mansoor had already grown accustomed to strange behaviors in his devices: phones heating up suddenly, suspicious messages, drained bank accounts, according to someone familiar with his case. His phone had even been hacked using the Pegasus spyware, developed by Israel’s NSO Group. But the baby monitor was something new.

Mansoor had no idea that DarkMatter agents were using it to eavesdrop on his family’s private conversations.

DarkMatter’s Mass Surveillance Operations
In another project, DarkMatter formed what it called “Team Tiger”, a specialized unit for installing mass surveillance equipment in public places. These devices were capable of “intercepting, modifying, and redirecting” traffic on UAE mobile networks, according to an Italian security engineer recruited by DarkMatter in 2016.

And who was ultimately overseeing all of this?

In early 2016, Tahnoun bin Zayed was appointed National Security Advisor, giving him full control over the UAE’s intelligence apparatus. Evidence suggests that the real entity controlling DarkMatter was Royal Group, Tahnoun’s investment arm.

A Journalist Becomes a Target
Later, I may have become a target of UAE surveillance myself. In 2021, The Pegasus Project—a coalition of investigative journalists—told me that my phone had been targeted by Pegasus spyware in 2018.

At the time, I was investigating a global financial scandal involving a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family—Tahnoun’s brother, Mansour bin Zayed. The UAE denied targeting the individuals mentioned in the report, including me.

However, the targeting of American citizens became a red line for some former Project Raven operatives.

Lori Stroud, a former NSA employee who turned whistleblower, told Reuters in 2019:

“I am working for a foreign intelligence agency targeting American citizens. I have officially become the bad kind of spy.”

This revelation led to U.S. federal charges against several former NSA leaders involved in the project, including Marc Baier. DarkMatter and Project Raven were dismantled, with their resources reallocated to other companies and government agencies. Many of their operations were absorbed into a new entity founded in 2018—G42.

The Rise of G42
G42 has publicly denied any ties to DarkMatter, but the connections are clear. For example, one of DarkMatter’s subsidiaries worked closely with Chinese companies and later became part of G42.

Not only that, but Ben Xiao, the CEO of that subsidiary, became CEO of G42 itself.

In 2019, a new chat app called ToTok suddenly appeared in the UAE, promising users free and unrestricted calls—unlike banned apps like WhatsApp.

Within weeks, it topped the global Apple and Google Play store charts. But there was a catch:

Every time a user opened the app, they unknowingly granted it full access to their phone—including photos, messages, calls, and location data.

Agents of the Raven Project targeted Emirati human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor—one of those who called for democratic reform during the Arab Spring—through his son’s baby monitor.

In 2016, Mansoor noticed strange behavior in his devices: phones heating up suddenly, suspicious messages, and drained bank accounts, according to a person familiar with his story. His phone was even hacked using Pegasus spyware, produced by the Israeli company NSO Group, but the baby monitor was something new.

Mansoor had no idea that DarkMatter agents were using it to eavesdrop on his private family conversations.

In another project, DarkMatter formed what it called the Tiger Team—a unit specializing in installing mass surveillance equipment in public places. These devices were capable of “intercepting, modifying, and redirecting” traffic on UAE mobile networks, according to an Italian security engineer recruited by DarkMatter in 2016.

Who was ultimately overseeing all of this activity?

Tahnoun was appointed National Security Advisor in early 2016, making him fully responsible for the UAE’s intelligence agencies. Evidence suggests that the entity controlling DarkMatter was actually Royal Group, Tahnoun’s investment arm.

Later, I may have become a target of UAE surveillance myself. In 2021, the Pegasus Project—a coalition of investigative journalists—informed me that my phone was targeted with Pegasus spyware in 2018.

At the time, I was investigating a global financial scandal involving a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family—Tahnoun’s brother, Mansour bin Zayed. The UAE denied targeting the individuals named in the report, including me.

However, the hacking and tracking of American citizens became a red line for some former Raven Project operatives.

Lori Stroud, a former NSA employee who became a whistleblower, told Reuters in 2019: “I’m working for a foreign intelligence agency targeting American citizens. I have officially become the bad kind of spy.”

This revelation led to U.S. federal charges against several former NSA leaders involved in the project, including Marc Baier. DarkMatter and the Raven Project were dismantled, and their resources were redistributed to other companies and government agencies. Many of their components were integrated under a new entity established in 2018—G42.

G42 publicly denied any ties to DarkMatter, but the connections are not hard to spot. For example, one of DarkMatter’s subsidiaries closely collaborated with Chinese companies and later appeared to become part of G42.

Not only that, but its CEO, Peng Xiao, became the CEO of G42 itself.

In 2019, a new chat app suddenly appeared in the UAE called ToTok, promising users free, unrestricted calls—unlike banned apps like WhatsApp.

The app quickly topped Apple and Google stores globally within weeks, but there was a catch: every time a user opened the app, it gained full access to their phone—including photos, messages, calls, and location data.

The data of millions of users flowed into Pax AI, a G42 subsidiary operating from the same building that housed the UAE’s intelligence agency.

The UAE had spent fortunes on Pegasus spyware and DarkMatter’s hacking teams, but ToTok was simpler and smarter: users weren’t manually targeted—they downloaded the spyware themselves.

In Abu Dhabi, succession debates were ongoing. Insiders from the ruling family say that Tahnoun argued his brother Mohammed should follow tradition and allow the sons of Zayed to rule as long as they were in good health and sound mind—a system that would have positioned him as a contender. But Mohammed was determined for his son Khaled to be the crown prince, signaling to the country’s large youth population that they were represented at the highest levels of power.

Tahnoun pushed his view for over a year, even presenting evidence that Mohammed’s plan contradicted their father’s will on succession. But in the end, the brothers reached a deal: Tahnoun agreed to relinquish his ambition to be crown prince or ruler—in exchange for vast influence over the country’s financial resources. This deal ultimately granted him control over $1.5 trillion in sovereign wealth.

In 2023, Tahnoun was appointed chairman of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the country’s largest and most important sovereign wealth fund. A few weeks later, Khaled was announced as crown prince.

Officially, Tahnoun received a modest promotion to deputy ruler alongside his brother Hazza. But those dealing with Abu Dhabi in recent years consistently observe one thing: his influence has grown tremendously—not just in finance, but also in diplomacy. He took charge of relations with Iran, Qatar, and Israel and even managed ties with the U.S. for a period when relations soured under the Biden administration.

Christian Coates Ulrichsen, a Gulf policy researcher at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, says: “Whenever there is a tough file, it gets handed to Tahnoun.” He adds that this skill has helped him “expand his power tremendously.”

With his access to new resources, Tahnoun funneled them into his investment network and massive companies. Under Royal Group, he controls G42 and another giant conglomerate, International Holding Company, which employs more than 50,000 people and owns everything from a copper mine in Zambia to a golf club and the St. Regis island resort in Abu Dhabi. He also oversees First Abu Dhabi Bank, the UAE’s largest bank, along with another multibillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund known as ADQ.

Now, as his role in the global AI arms race grows, Tahnoun’s empire holds a stake in the very future of humanity itself.

Even if limits are placed on his influence, the UAE has a history of finding ways to achieve its objectives.

This reminds me of briefings given by NSO Group officials to journalists in the early 2010s, where they insisted that Pegasus spyware had safeguards against abuse—and that Pegasus clients (like the UAE) would be prevented from targeting U.S. and UK phone numbers (like mine). It also reminds me of how the NSA initially blessed the Raven Project.

The new Donald Trump administration is expected to maintain restrictions on GPU chip exports. But within Tahnoun’s circle, the belief is that the new administration will be “more flexible” regarding the UAE’s AI ambitions.

Furthermore, at least one person in Trump’s inner circle has a personal stake in this relationship: the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia collectively contributed more than $2 billion to Jared Kushner’s private equity fund, securing it $20-30 million annually in management fees alone.

People familiar with the discussions say Abu Dhabi’s leaders consulted Kushner and other Trump allies, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, about AI policies.

While continued GPU supply could remain a U.S. leverage point, that leverage may weaken as competing chips improve.

Some analysts argue that export restrictions are not as powerful as U.S. officials believe. Cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier says: “AI isn’t like nuclear energy, where you can restrict materials.” The technology is already widely distributed, and the idea that U.S. companies hold an absolute and overwhelming advantage is an illusion.

Now that Tahnoun has been “brought into the inner circle” and secured a key, growing role as a favored investor among the winners in the AI race, he has undoubtedly carved out influence of his own. Those who continually need funding from the UAE may welcome its increasing clout.

At the World Government Summit last year, Sam Altman suggested that the UAE could serve as a “global regulatory testbed” for AI—a place where new technology rules could be shaped, tested, and developed.

Meanwhile, the Middle East may be on the verge of a post-Arab Spring-like period, where the rules largely fall outside conventional calculations.

Now that rebels have taken Syria from Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Gulf states—particularly the UAE—will seek to intensify surveillance to prevent the spread of Islamist unrest.

Karen Young, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, says: “We’ll see more repression and more use of surveillance technology.” When it comes to managing threats and winning strategic battles, Tahnoun always ensures he has the most powerful machine in the world.