(2011-12-20) Saudi Prince Talal Buys Chunk Of Twitter

Saudi Arabia Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal said Monday that he and his investment firm, Kingdom Holding Company, are purchasing a $300 million stake in Twitter... The prince's Twitter shares were bought on the secondary market, according to Fortune reporter Dan Primack -- which means that Twitter didn't directly receive any of the cash... Alwaleed's investment firm, KHC, owns a 7% stake in NewsCorporation (NewsCorp) (NWS) along with a host of high-profile investments, including a 29.9% stake in Saudi Research and Marketing Group. KHC's other investments include C N N Money parent company Time Warner (TWX, Fortune 500), Apple Computer (AAPL, Fortune 500) and CitiGroup (C, Fortune 500). Alwaleed also has plans to launch a privately owned news channel.

Everyone wonders who sold. Some employees may have quit for the opportunity: 2011-07-21-TwitterDorseyPurgesProductPeople

Some are shocked at the idea of Saudi money going into a revolutionary medium. Douglas Rushkoff isn't: Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is no doubt aware of Twitter and Facebook's tremendous influence in his own and neighboring countries, and may even be personally concerned about what a revolution might do to his own and his family's sovereign rule. But why should that stop him from positioning himself to become the wealthiest deposed royal he can be? It's a win-win... The dismay and disillusionment associated with this transaction seems overblown to me, or at least misplaced. In short, we are looking at the wrong medium. We are not witnessing Twitter operate against its central, democratizing premise. We are witnessing money operate in perfect accordance with its own, highly abstracting premise. Money, by its very nature, launders.