Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan

Tahnoun was born in Abu Dhabi in 1968, a son of the UAE’s founding president, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Like his elder brother, current President Mohamed bin Zayed, he is one of the six sons of Fatima, Zayed’s most favored wife (the so-called Bani Fatima), whom Zayed groomed to go abroad and become worldly.⁠[1][2][2]

He took up and mastered Brazilian jiujitsu while studying in California, becoming one of the first black belt holders in the Arab world; in 1995 he walked into a jiujitsu dojo in San Diego asking to be trained, at first introducing himself under an assumed name and only later revealing that he was a prince of Abu Dhabi. After returning to the UAE in 1995, he worked to popularize jiujitsu nationwide and is regarded as the founder of the sport in the UAE.⁠[1][1][2][2][1][1]

From 1996 to 2004, Tahnoun chaired the Private Department of the UAE President, Sheikh Zayed; in 1996 he also became chairman of First Gulf Bank.⁠[1][1]

In 1998, Tahnoun founded the Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC).⁠[1]

In the late 1990s, as Zayed’s health failed, his sons began starting businesses of their own, and Tahnoun founded his first holding company, Royal Group. Through Royal Group he funded the chess supercomputer Hydra and, under the username zor_champ, played online chess tournaments as a team with Hydra; in 2005, Hydra’s Austrian chief architect Chrilly Donninger called this sponsor the greatest “computer chess freak” alive. He also founded a robotics company that produced the humanoid robot REEM-C. In 2008 he became honorary president of the Abu Dhabi Chess and Culture Club.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][1]

In 2005, Tahnoun became chairman of the Emiri Flight Authority; from 2009 to 2013 he chaired the Presidential Flight Authority.⁠[1][1]

Then UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed issued a federal decree appointing Tahnoun Deputy National Security Adviser with the rank of minister.⁠[3][3]

In early 2016, Tahnoun was appointed National Security Adviser of the UAE by federal decree, placing him fully in charge of the country’s intelligence. As of October 2026, he remains both Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi and National Security Adviser of the UAE.⁠[2][1][4]

In 2017, First Gulf Bank merged with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi to form First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), and Tahnoun became chairman of the merged bank.⁠[1]

In 2018, Tahnoun became chairman of G42, the Abu Dhabi AI and cloud computing company founded that year.⁠[1][2]

In 2019, Tahnoun became chairman of the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ and was appointed a member of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and chairman of its Strategic Affairs Committee.⁠[1][1]

Since April 2020, Tahnoun has chaired International Holding Company (IHC); the same year he was appointed a member of Abu Dhabi’s Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs.⁠[1][1]

In April 2021, G42 announced a substantial investment from the technology investment firm Silver Lake, whose co-CEO Egon Durban joined the G42 board led by Tahnoun and said that under his “visionary leadership” G42 had quickly become a globally respected technology leader.⁠[5][5]

An investigation by The Moscow Times found that the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) had granted the Abu Dhabi company Aurugulf Health Investments exclusive rights to sell the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine in many countries, with buyers paying more than double Russia’s advertised price. Citing corporate registry data, the investigation found that Royal Group, run by Tahnoun, was one of two entities controlling Aurugulf, and that Chimera Investments, also involved in the deals, was a Royal Group subsidiary. Neither RDIF nor the Abu Dhabi company responded to requests for comment.⁠[6][6][6][6][6][6]

In 2023, the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs restructured the board of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the UAE’s largest sovereign wealth fund, with Tahnoun as chairman; weeks later his nephew Khaled was announced as Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and President Mohamed bin Zayed issued an Emiri decree that year appointing Tahnoun, alongside his brother Hazza, Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi. Citing royal insiders, WIRED writer Bradley Hope said Tahnoun had argued that the sons of Zayed should rule in turn, and that the brothers ultimately reached an arrangement in which he set aside his ambition to be crown prince in exchange for vast power over the country’s financial resources.⁠[1][1][2][2][2][2][2]

In 2024, President Mohamed bin Zayed awarded Tahnoun the Order of the Union in recognition of his efforts in successfully organizing the COP28 climate conference hosted by the UAE.⁠[1]

After the United States restricted exports of Nvidia GPUs to the Middle East in August 2023, Tahnoun led a sharp pivot at G42: in early 2024, G42 announced it was severing ties with China and would rip out Chinese equipment. In April 2024, Microsoft announced a $1.5 billion investment in G42, and Microsoft President Brad Smith joined G42’s board.⁠[2][2][2][2]

On January 22, 2024, UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed established Abu Dhabi’s Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council (AIATC), chaired by Tahnoun and responsible for developing and implementing Abu Dhabi’s policies and strategies on research, infrastructure, and investment in AI and advanced technology.⁠[7][8]

The AIATC announced the creation of the AI investment company MGX with MubadalaMubadala Investment CompanyMubadala Investment Company (Mubadala) is a sovereign investor wholly owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi. It was formed in 2017 by the merger of the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), founded in 1984, and Mubadala Development Company, founded in 2002, and absorbed the Abu Dhabi Investment Council the following year; as of the end of 2025 it managed about AED 1.4 trillion (US$385 billion) in assets, with business in more than 80 countries.Open the full entry and G42 as foundational partners, with Tahnoun as chairman. He said MGX would be a “UAE national champion” focused on AI and advanced technologies, dedicated to accelerating AI’s responsible and inclusive development. On May 27, 2024, he chaired MGX’s inaugural board meeting.⁠[7][7][7][8]

In the summer of 2024, Tahnoun toured the United States, visiting Elon Musk in Texas, training jiujitsu with Mark Zuckerberg, and meeting Bill Gates, Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos in quick succession; at the White House he met National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and President Joe Biden.⁠[2][2][2]

In a July 2024 open letter, Michael McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called for “significantly more robust national security guardrails” before the United States exported any sensitive technology to the UAE; he later reiterated his concern that technology could leak to China through the UAE’s deal with Microsoft and said the United States must first establish legally binding protections. No response from Tahnoun himself was found.⁠[2][2][2]

BlackRockBlackRockBlackRock is a publicly traded investment management company headquartered in New York, founded in 1988 by Larry Fink and seven others and listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker BLK); its businesses include the iShares family of exchange-traded funds and the Aladdin investment and risk management platform. As of June 30, 2026, its assets under management totaled $15.3 trillion.Open the full entry, Global Infrastructure Partners, Microsoft, and MGX launched the Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership (GAIIP). Speaking as chairman of MGX, Tahnoun said that AI “is not just an industry of the future, it underpins the future.”⁠[9]

WIRED published a long article by Bradley Hope saying Tahnoun controls about $1.5 trillion in sovereign wealth and wants to use it to dominate AI. The article argued that after he took on national security roles, the UAE’s surveillance ambitions reached an industrial scale: Project Raven, staffed by former U.S. intelligence operatives, was moved under the Emirati state-owned DarkMatter and tracked journalists and dissidents, with signs that Royal Group was DarkMatter’s ultimate controlling party; it also argued that parts of DarkMatter later moved under G42 and linked G42’s subsidiary Pax AI to the messaging app ToTok. Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation criticized the UAE as an authoritarian state with a dismal human rights record and a history of using technology to spy on activists, journalists, and dissidents.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2]

G42 has publicly denied any connection to DarkMatter; ToTok’s representatives adamantly denied that their product was spyware; and the UAE denied targeting many of the people identified as Pegasus spyware targets. G42 declined to comment on specific details, issuing only an overall statement that it is committed to responsible innovation and ethical governance.⁠[2][2][2][2]

President Trump hosted Tahnoun for a banquet dinner at the White House and afterward wrote on Truth Social that the evening demonstrated the long-standing friendship between the two countries and that they had discussed ways to expand their economic and technological partnership. AI was high on the agenda of the visit, and in Washington he also met Elon Musk and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. The same week, ADQ, the sovereign wealth fund he chairs, signed a $25 billion partnership with the U.S. energy investor Energy Capital Partners to serve the growing electricity needs of data centers.⁠[10][10][10][10][10][10][10]

In May 2025, World Liberty FinancialWorld Liberty FinancialWorld Liberty Financial is a crypto finance venture launched in September 2024, co-founded by members of the families of US President Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff, among others; it issues the governance token WLFI and offers the US dollar stablecoin USD1 as its main product. Over the Trump family’s large income from token sales, foreign investors taking stakes, and regulatory approvals, it has faced ongoing conflict-of-interest questions from members of the US Congress and ethics watchdogs; the company and the White House have denied any wrongdoing.Open the full entry told CBS News that MGX, chaired by Tahnoun, would buy $2 billion of World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin and use it to invest in Binance. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy criticized the deal, saying no one would invest in a “Trump stablecoin” unless they wanted something from Trump, and called the U.S. government’s subsequent relaxation of chip export restrictions on the UAE a “quid pro quo” for Abu Dhabi’s investment. Deputy White House press secretary Anna Kelly responded that “there are no conflicts of interest.”⁠[11][11][12][12][12]

The UAE President, as Ruler of Abu Dhabi, issued a resolution reconstituting the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council, still chaired by Tahnoun, with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Khaled as vice-chairman, Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak as secretary general, and members including Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber and Peng Xiao.⁠[13][13][13][13][13]

As Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi and chairman of G42, Tahnoun chaired G42’s year-end board meeting. G42 Group CEO Peng Xiao said that under his leadership G42 was laying the foundations of a new “intelligence economy.”⁠[14][14]

Under Tahnoun’s guidance, the Tahnoon bin Zayed Scholarship in AI Excellence was established to support about 350 undergraduates at the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence over six years, starting in the 2025–2026 academic year. He said AI is reshaping every aspect of human progress and that the future belongs to those who learn fast, adapt with courage, and harness these technologies responsibly.⁠[15][15][15][15][15][15]

As Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi and a member of the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs, Tahnoun chaired ADQ’s fourth board meeting of 2025, which reviewed ADQ’s third-quarter financial performance; he commended its portfolio companies for building globally competitive platforms and strengthening economic resilience.⁠[16][16][16]

In the first half of 2026, Tahnoun met figures including the CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, the chairman and CEO of Bechtel, the President of Paraguay, Meta’s leadership, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the president of Blackstone, the CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, the founder of Thoma Bravo, the UK Prime Minister’s special adviser, and the chairman and CEO of Bloom Energy, mostly on AI, investment, and energy.⁠[17][17][17][17][17][17][17][17][17][17]

On the 50th anniversary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Tahnoun, as ADIA’s chairman, expressed confidence in its continued success and growing strategic role, noting that rapid technological change, particularly in AI, is opening a new chapter in investing. The same month he chaired ADIA’s first board meeting of 2026, which reviewed its performance for 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, its future strategy, and AI capability enhancements.⁠[18][18][18][19][19][19]

Tahnoun chaired a meeting of the Investment Affairs Council under the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs, which reviewed the first-quarter 2026 financial performance of ADIA, Mubadala, L’IMAD, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), as well as investment plans for the second half of the year.⁠[20][20][20][20]

In September 2026, the Abu Dhabi sovereign investor L’IMAD and Azerbaijan Investment Holding signed a partnership in Baku to pursue joint strategic investments in Azerbaijan and Central Asia, in the presence of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Tahnoun. On September 30, Sultan Haitham bin Tariq of Oman received Tahnoun at Al Baraka Palace during his official visit, and the two sides discussed expanding cooperation across various fields.⁠[21][21][21][21][4][4][4][4]

In the presence of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Khaled, Tahnoun chaired a meeting of the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council that reviewed the UAE-US AI Campus, AI research and talent, and the Abu Dhabi government’s progress toward becoming the world’s first fully AI-native government by 2027. He said Abu Dhabi’s ambition extends beyond adopting AI to developing its technologies and shaping the economy built around them.⁠[22][22][22][22][22]

Tahnoun met Dan Simkowitz, co-president of Morgan StanleyMorgan StanleyMorgan Stanley is an American global financial services firm that grew from an investment banking partnership into a publicly traded financial group spanning investment banking, securities trading, wealth management, and investment management.Open the full entry; they discussed the capital needed to expand the AI ecosystem and the effects of rapid technological change on the future of work and the global investment landscape, and exchanged views on IPO markets and the growing role of digital assets in wealth management.⁠[23][23][23][23]

As of October 2026, Tahnoun is Deputy Ruler of Abu Dhabi, National Security Advisor of the UAE, and chairman of the Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council, as well as chairman of ADIA, ADQ, IHC, First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), and G42, and a board member of the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs. Through Royal Group he also controls G42 and the International Holding Company (IHC), which employs more than 50,000 people.⁠[24][24][24][2]

Tahnoun is a keen cyclist and Brazilian jiujitsu practitioner who holds a black belt in jiujitsu, is one of the foremost supporters of cycling in the UAE, and founded the Abu Dhabi Combat Club; he also enjoys equestrian endurance racing, writing, chess, and reading.⁠[1][1][24][24][2]

Official website: https://www.tahnoonbinzayedofficial.ae/ (opens in a new window)⁠[25]

X: Public account: https://x.com/hhtbzayed (opens in a new window)⁠[26]

Instagram: Public account: https://www.instagram.com/hhtbzayed (opens in a new window)⁠[25]

MGX: Board page: https://www.mgx.ae/our-board (opens in a new window)⁠[24]

Abu Dhabi Media Office: Topic page: https://www.mediaoffice.abudhabi/en/topic/tahnoon-bin-zayed-al-nahyan/ (opens in a new window)⁠[27]