Qatari royal invested about $50 million in pro-Trump network Newsmax

A member of the Qatari royal family invested roughly $50 million in Newsmax, according to documents and representatives for the media company and the royal, in a moment of acute Middle East tensions during the Trump administration. The investment bolstered a key conservative media outlet at a time when Qatar was facing intense diplomatic pressure from its neighbors and seeking allies in the United States.

At the time the investment was made, a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had established a diplomatic and economic blockade against Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorist groups across the Middle East. Qatar had counted on its relationship with the United States for protection, but President Donald Trump initially sided with its regional rivals, praising their move in 2017 and criticizing Qatar for funding terrorism.

In 2019 and 2020, Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al Thani, a former Qatari government official and the owner of a London-based investment fund, Heritage Advisors, invested in Newsmax. The investment has not been previously reported.

Newsmax had been looking for outside investors to better compete with its much larger rival, Fox News, according to people who spoke at the time with its founder and CEO, Christopher Ruddy. Before and after the investment, senior newsroom leaders urged Newsmax staff to soften coverage of Qatar, current and former employees said. A representative for Newsmax strongly disputed that the network “slanted coverage to be favorable to Qatar,” and that Ruddy had told staf…  f not to criticize the country.

Newsmax and Heritage Advisors confirmed the investment after being presented with documents detailing the transaction, which show that Sultan subsequently transferred his stake to a Cayman Islands-based corporate structure. The $50 million investment represents a significant minority stake in Newsmax, a privately held media company estimated to be worth between $100 million and $200 million, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The documents came from a trove of roughly 100,000 leaked files from Genesis Trust, a Cayman Islands-based financial services provider, which were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and reviewed by The Washington Post.