• October 29, 2001
• Vol. 56
• No. 18

No Check, Please

Royally Ticked Off, Rudy Giuliani Returns a Saudi Prince's $10 Million Gift

Things were going according to plan. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, nephew of Saudi Arabia's ruling King Fahd, had toured the rubble of the World Trade Center on Oct. 11, then handed New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani a check for $10 million to help relief efforts. So far, so good. But in a statement issued a short while later, Alwaleed urged the U.S. to "address some of the issues that led to such a criminal attack," including its pro-Israeli stance.

Wrong sentiment, wrong time, definitely wrong mayor. Told of the statement, Giuliani rejected the prince's donation. "To suggest there is justification for [the attacks] only invites this happening in the future," the mayor declared. The swift rebuke left Alwaleed—one of the world's richest men, with a portfolio recently valued at $20 billion—feeling "surprised and hurt because he thought he was doing something good," says Amir Taheri, a journalist for the Arab newspaper Asharq-Alawsat, who spoke with the prince. Digging a deeper hole, Alwaleed later blamed the episode on "Jewish pressure" exerted on the mayor.

One of the biggest single foreign investors in U.S. businesses, the prince has a big stake in New York City's recovery and reportedly spent more than $1 billion buying ailing Wall Street and European stocks after the attacks. On his third marriage and living in a 317-room Riyadh palace equipped with 520 TV sets, Alwaleed is politically "moderate," says Abraham Khayat, a reporter for the Arab newspaper Al-Hayat. Thus Giuliani's snub "was seen as an ugly political act in the Arab world."

Maybe, but the prince isn't taking it too personally. "He still loves the Big Apple very much," says Taheri. "He says he is sure it will recover, and he will be there to help."