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Emirati national security advisor
Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan or Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan is an Emirati politician and the national security advisor of United Arab Emirates (UAE) since 2016. At the same time he manages a $1.3 trillion business portfolio, which supports national security interests, and the UAE's opaque corporate sector. He chairs the AI company G42 and MGX.
Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan was born to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and Fatima bint Mubarak Al Ketbi. He has five brothers: Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE President and Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed, Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed and Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE's foreign minister.
In August 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported about the Donald Trump administration of imposing sanctions against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, targeting financial-support networks aiding the President from outside the country, to coerce Damascus into peace talks. According to financial records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Sheikh Tahnoun deposited about $200,000 into the bank accounts held by the niece of Syrian President Assad, Aniseh Shawkat, over a period of several years as her sponsor. The UK authorities seized several of these bank accounts in 2019, claiming that hundreds of thousands of dollars deposited into her accounts helped circumvent European Union’s sanctions against the Syrian government funds. Sheikh Tahnoun, Aniseh Shawkat and her attorney Zubair Ahmad did not respond when reached out for comment.
Tahnoun is married to Khawla Ahmed Khalifa Alsuwaidi, a poet and master calligrapher. Like her husband she uses shell companies to own real estate in affluent parts of London. He has two children, Sheikha Fatima and Sheikh Zayed. Tahnoun is a practitioner and patron of martial arts, especially Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In 1998, he created the ADCC Submission Fighting World Championship alongside his BJJ instructor Nelson Monteiro. TIME features Tahnoon in the TIME100 AI 2025 list.
In 1992, he founded First Gulf Bank. From 2009 to 2013, he was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Presidential Aviation Authority. In March 2013 President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan appointed him as a deputy national security advisor. In February 2016, he was appointed as national security advisor. On 18 August 2020 Sheikh Tahnoun received Yossi Cohen, the Head of Israeli Intelligence Agency, Mossad after the UAE–Israel peace accord. As of 2021, Tahnoun was chairman of Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company (ADQ), a state holding company worth $110 billion, First Abu Dhabi Bank, the UAE's largest lender, Royal Group (a conglomerate) and International Holding Company. He chairs G42, an artificial intelligence company founded 2018. In 2023, Tahnoon was named chair of the $790 billion Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates. He became "one of the leaders in deploying the UAE’s massive bank of oil money". Tahnoun's IHC established an investment unit, Lunate, which took over the management of G42's China-focused fund, 42X Fund. Lunate formed a small team of more than 160 people, and was overseen by Tahnoon. However, the fund became questionable due to G42's assurance to the US that it will divest from China. In 2024, a Tahnouun-backed company and the Qatar government put $1.5 billion into an investment company owned by Jared Kushner. Tahnoun owns an investment company, Aryam Investment 1. Tahnoun's company MGX has a $2 billion investment in Binance, a cryptocurrency company that had pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-mondeylaundering rules. The Abu Dhabi royal family were part of a lobbying effort to get the Trump administration to pardon Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.
Biographical detail compiled from Wikipedia and Wikidata, which are edited openly and may be incomplete or out of date. Fleet data is our own. Source →
