Here’s something I hadn’t thought of before…
In 2009, Ari Emmanuel met Al Mubarak, the then-34 year old, Tufts-educated, head of Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s world-leading, sovereign wealth fund. Mubarak was a big UFC fan.
In July 2016, Emmanuel, Mubarak, and his friends at Endeavor (formerly Willam Morris Endeavor, aka WME-IMG) bought a 50.1% controlling share of the UFC from Zuffa and the Fertitta brothers for $4 billion.
In 2017, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who had been friends with his Country’s royal family for decades and an adviser to government officials, had a disagreement with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman. The Prince is the son of King Salman and Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler. Khashoggi feared being arrested for a “crackdown on dissent” by the Prince. The journalist relocated to self-imposed exile in the United States.
In September 2017, Khashoggi began writing a monthly column for The Washington Post, which was critical of the Saudi government and royal family.
October 2018, Khashoggi visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to obtain proof of his Saudi divorce, so that he could marry his Turkish fiancée. Saudi officials at the consulate tried to persuade Khashoggi to return to their Country. When he refused to do so voluntarily, they attempted to arrest him for extradition, but instead they forcibly restrained him and injected him with a high dosage of drugs, which caused his death by overdose. The five men then dismembered his body and handed over his remains to an outside collaborator for disposal outside of the consulate.
In October 2018, Endeavor founder Ari Emmanuel announced that he was backing out of a deal which would have given the Saudi national investment group
