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Adnan Khashoggi in Deauville, France in the 1980s by Roland Godefroy –

Top 10 Fascinating Facts about Adnan Khashoggi

Adnan Khashoggi was a Saudi businessman and arms dealer known for his lavish business deals and lifestyle. He was estimated to have had a peak net worth of around US$4 billion in the early 1980s. Khashoggi was born in Mecca, to Mohammad Khashoggi, who was King Abdul Aziz Al Saud’s personal doctor, and Samiha Ahmed. Khashoggi’s sister was author Samira Khashoggi who married businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed and was the mother of Dodi Fayed.

Khashoggi was educated at Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt, and the American universities California State University, Chico, Ohio State University, and Stanford University. Adnan Khashoggi left his studies in order to seek his fortune in business.

Here are 10 fascinating facts about Adnan Khashoggi.

1. Khashoggi’s early years were spent among some of Saudi Arabia’s most influential figures

While attending school he met Hussein bin Talal, the future King of Jordan. It was at school that Khashoggi first learned the commercial value of facilitating a deal.

It was during this time, that he brought together a Libyan classmate whose father wanted to import towels with an Egyptian classmate whose father manufactured towels, earning US$1,000 for the introduction. Khashoggi’s subsequent education at university would serve as a launchpad for his commercial career.

2. Khashoggi made his first US$250,000 as an agent for Kenworth

A Kenworth truck by Andrej Danković –

In one of his first big deals, a large construction company was experiencing difficulties with the trucks that it used on the shifting desert sands. Khashoggi, using money given to him by his father for a car, bought a number of Kenworth trucks, whose wide wheels made traversing the desert considerably easier. 

Khashoggi made his first US$250,000 leasing the trucks to the construction company and became the Saudi Arabia-based agent for Kenworth.

3. Khashoggi helped bring together Western companies and the Saudi Arabian government

In the 1960s and 1970s, Khashoggi helped bring together Western companies and the Saudi Arabian government, to satisfy its infrastructure and defense needs. Between 1970 and 1975, Lockheed paid Khashoggi $106 million in commissions. 

His commissions started at 2.5% and eventually rose to as much as 15%. Khashoggi “became for all practical purposes a marketing arm of Lockheed. Khashoggi would provide not only an entrée but strategy, constant advice, and analysis”, according to Max Helzel, then vice president of Lockheed’s international marketing.

4. Khashoggi owned the largest yacht named the Nabila after his daughter

, , via Wikimedia Commons

Kingdom 5KR, originally named Nabila is an 85.65-meter 281 ft superyacht built for Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi. This yacht was the largest in the world at the time and was used in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again.

After Khashoggi ran into financial problems he sold the yacht to the Sultan of Brunei, who in turn sold it for US$29 million to Donald Trump, who sold it for US$20 million to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal as part of a deal to keep his Taj Mahal casino out of bankruptcy.

5. Khashoggi was an arms dealer who brokered deals between US firms and the Saudi government

He was most active in the 1960s and 1970s. In the documentary series The Mayfair Set, Saudi author Said Aburish states that one of Khashoggi’s first deals was providing David Stirling with weapons for a covert mission in Yemen during the Aden Emergency in 1963. Among his overseas clients were defense contractors Lockheed Corporation which is now known as Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, and Northrop Corporation, the last two of which have now merged into Northrop Grumman.

6. Khashoggi donated US$200 million to U.S. President’s Richard Nixon campaign

Richard Nixon, Official Presidential Photograph by Oliver F. Atkins –

Khashoggi gained influence with U.S. President Richard Nixon by donating US$200 million to his 1972 political campaign.

This was done through a friendly bank circumventing existing laws that prohibited such large sums from American corporations to political campaigns. Similar arrangements allowed Khashoggi to gain influence with important people throughout the World.

7. Khashoggi headed and owned a company called Triad International Holding Company

Triad International is a multi-national private investment corporation that was owned by the late Adnan Khashoggi. Its investments include many notable properties and businesses throughout the World. The company consisted of subsidiary companies, including Triad Management, Triad Properties, Triad Energy, Triad Technology, and Triad Financial resources.

The global span of the businesses prompted the creation by the Khashoggi family of a board game called Triopoly which was modeled after the classic game of Monopoly. The various game tiles represented properties and companies owned by Khashoggi and his Triad corporation. The game was manufactured and given to family and friends.

8. Khashoggi, through Triad, owns private properties 

Adnan Khashoggi appearing on After Dark – episode ‘The Gulf: Counting The Cost’ – on 2 March 1991 by Open Media Ltd –

He owned the Mount Kenya Safari Club, known as Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a several hundred-acre reserve at the foot of Mount Kenya, San Francisco Town Center East, US; a US$250 million property; Long Beach Edgington Oil a US$250 million per year oil refinery in the US; ATV computer systems, Santa Ana, Arizona, US; Colorado Land & Cattle Company, Security National bank in Walnut Creek, California, US, Barrick gold mine in Toronto, Canada; Saudi Arabian Kenworth, Chrysler and Fiat car and truck dealerships; the National Gypsum company in Saudi Arabia, and Sahuaro Petroleum in Phoenix, Arizona, US.

The company also had major financial interests in Lloyd’s of London; the Manera company; Las Brisas Resort in Acapulco, Mexico; the Houston Galleria; National car rental company; Pyramid Oasis in Cairo, Egypt; Travel Lodge Australia; Pacific Harbor hotel in Fiji; Beirut Riyadh bank; and the bank of Contra Costa. 

Khashoggi’s Triad real estate holdings included private residences in Beirut; Jeddah; Riyadh; Geneva; Cairo; Salt Lake City, Utah; Cone Ranch, Florida; Rome; Â鶹APP; Cannes; London; and a multi-floor penthouse in Olympic Tower in New York.

9. Khashoggi funded the top-secret Operation Moses in 1984

Khashoggi was directly involved in helping to organize and fund the top-secret Operation Moses in 1984 to airlift to safety 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel during a famine caused by the Ethiopian civil war.

Operation Moses was the covert evacuation of Ethiopian Jews known as the Beta Israel community or Falashas from Sudan during a civil war that caused a famine in 1984. Originally called Gur Aryeh Yehuda Cub of the Lion of Judah by Israelis, the United Jewish Appeal changed the name to Operation Moses.

10. In 1988, Khashoggi was arrested in Switzerland

He was accused of concealing funds, and held for three months. Khashoggi stopped fighting extradition when the U.S. prosecutors reduced the charges to obstruction of justice and mail fraud and dropped the more serious charges of racketeering and conspiracy. 

In 1990, a United States federal jury in Manhattan acquitted Khashoggi and Imelda Marcos, widow of the exiled Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, of racketeering and fraud.