Billionaire Watch
Portugal blocks Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos’ bank accounts
There seems to be trouble for Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, as Portugal has frozen dozens of her personal and corporate accounts.
Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, seems to be in more trouble as dozens of her personal and corporate accounts have been frozen by Portugal.
The clampdown on Dos Santos accounts and Sindika Dokolo, her husband, is related to former’s face-off against the Angolan government, which instigated court action against her.
“We confirm that the public prosecution service requested the seizure of bank accounts, as part of the request for international judicial cooperation from the Angolan authorities,” the Portuguese prosecutor’s office told news agency Lusa.
Why was the decision taken? Dos Santos, who is worth $2.2 billion, has been linked to a corruption case involving misappropriation of funds from the state oil company, Sonangol. She is the daughter of the former Angolan president, José Eduardo dos Santos.
When corruption charges are filed against an individual, the person’s account(s) is usually flagged and blocked from conducting further transactions. So, with Dos Santos being identified as a suspect in a criminal investigation, such request was expected.
[READ MORE: Africa’s richest woman is in troubled waters)
Although dos Santos denied the charges against her, she reportedly authorised the transfer of consultancy fees estimated at about $115 million during her time as the chair of Sonangol – a position she got from her father during his 38-year term as president. But Dos Santos said the claim was “extremely misleading and untrue”.
How did the embezzlement affect Angola? According to a report by The Guardian, Angola lost about $1 billion in a deal Dos Santos and her husband pulled with state-owned businesses in the diamond and oil sectors.
Nairamterics had previously reported that dos Santos allegedly worked with four other accomplices to embezzle public funds from Sonangol. The embezzled funds reportedly helped her to amass her $2.1 billion fortune. She worked in the oil company for about a year and a half after the controversial appointment by her father in 2016.
Assets controlled by Isabel Dos Santos: Some assets controlled by Dos Santos and her Husband includes, banking, diamonds, oil, telecoms, property, engineering and supermarkets in Angola and Portugal. Also, on the list are some homes in London.
Around the World
Elon Musk loses an estimated $6bn after a Tesla car accident killed two people
Elon Musk’s net worth dipped by $6 billion following a tragic Tesla car accident that killed two people.
The second richest man in the world, Elon Musk, witnessed his wealth shed an estimated $6bn after a Tesla car was involved in an accident that led to the death of two people.
Tesla stocks dropped by 3.8% after the news of the crash went mainstream. The resultant effect on Elon Musk’s wealth was a $5.71bn loss in a single day.
READ: Google threatens to remove its search engine from Australia due to media code
The Accident
Two men lost their lives on Saturday night in Houston when their 2019 Tesla model car slammed into a tree. Police authorities on sight claimed the car might have been on autopilot due to the sitting position of the corpses.
They also struggled to put out the fire from the Tesla car and even called Tesla for help. The death of the two men has sparked a heated argument between Tesla and its critics. Autopilot or not?
Although police officers’ assertion that the car may have been on autopilot remains unconfirmed, it has raised serious uncertainty about the safety of Tesla’s autopilot feature and Tesla’s critics are not backing down on this.
READ: Dealers explain why ‘Tokunbo’ Cars are expensive
Elon Musk reacts
Elon Musk has reacted to the news, insisting that the autopilot feature in the crashed vehicle was not enabled. According to him, the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the accident was not professional.
READ: Meet the 39 years old Chinese billionaire electric car maker
What you should know
Elon Musk is now worth $183bn following the recent drop. He closed the gap on Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to $4bn early last week. The gap has widened to $14bn today.
Billionaire Watch
TikTok’s 38 year-old founder is worth $35.5 billion – Here’s what we know
At 38 years old, Zhang Yiming is the 39th richest man in the world.
TikTok a video sharing app was named the most downloaded app of the first quarter of 2021 but not much is known about its founder. The app now has over 689 million active users worldwide according to statistics from oberlo.com. It has also been downloaded over 2 billion times on App Store and Google Playstore. It is arguably the most popular video-sharing app out there and the numbers keep growing.
TikTok was able to grow at a faster rate than Facebook and Instagram since its startup. The man behind this massive success is currently worth $35.5 billion and he is our person of interest today.
READ: TikTok to relocate headquarters to London following approval by UK ministers
Meet Zhang Yiming, the founder of Bytedance
38-year-old Zhang Yiming is the CEO and Founder of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. Zhang Yiming majored in microelectronics and software engineering at Nankai University. He worked for various tech startups including Microsoft before settling to start his own company.
The billionaire leads a very secretive lifestyle. He founded ByteDance back in 2012 and steered it all the way to financial success. He is currently worth $35.5 billion but his net worth is well on its way to doubling based on recent valuations.
ByteDance has two main flagship products – Toutiao, an AI-backed news aggregator and TikTok which he founded later after the success of Toutiao.
READ: US government to ban WeChat and TikTok from app stores
Revisiting the success of TikTok
Last year Zhang Yiming’s ByteDance was regarded as the most valuable startup in the world. TikTok became the most downloaded iOS app worldwide in the first quarter of 2019, according to the US research app Sensor Tower.
TikTok is available in 155 countries and in 75 languages.
READ: Folorunsho Alakija’s net worth drops below $1bn. A few things to know about her
Impressive valuation
Bytedance’s first major valuation was in 2018 where it was valued at $75bn according to Forbes. This was followed by another valuation which put it at $140bn according to CB Insights.
The latest 2021 valuation places ByteDance at over $250bn according to the South China morning post.
Zhang Yiming owns a quarter of ByteDance and with this recent valuation, his net worth is set to grow to $60bn according to experts in the field.
READ: China will not accept any Microsoft-TikTok deal
Donald Trump scare
The former president of the United States was on the verge of banning TikTok in the country. He claimed the App has ties to the Chinese government. This would have been a setback giving that the application is quite popular among US millennials and Gen Z. Donald Trump lost his re-election bid and very little has been said by the Biden administration on the issue.
What you should know
- At 38 years old, Zhang Yiming is the 39th richest man in the world. His parents were civil servants.
- The popularity of TikTok in the United States has raised concerns from US regulators.
