Crotchety Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a Saudi Arabian worth an estimated $20 billion by Forbes, has cut ties with the financial magazine after he came in at 26th on the latest “Billionaires” list. The crabby prince contends he’s worth $29.6 billion and should be in the top 10, the magazine reported.
So upset is Prince Alwaleed by the perceived slight, he wants nothing more to do with Forbes and has asked the magazine to remove him from the list.
"We have worked very openly with the Forbes team over the years and have on multiple occasions pointed out problems with their methodology that need correction," read a statement from the Kingdom Holding Company, which the prince owns. "However, after several years of our efforts to correct mistakes falling on deaf ears, we have decided that Forbes has no intention of improving the accuracy of their valuation of our holdings and we have made the decision to move on."
Forbes claims Alwaleed, 58, has tried for years to affect his fortune with pleading and fudged numbers. In 1988, the magazine says, Alwaleed approached Forbes to ensure he’d be listed in the second-ever “Billionaires” issue.
“Of the 1,426 billionaires on our list, not one — not even the vainglorious Donald Trump — goes to greater measure to try to affect his or her ranking,” the magazine wrote recently in an article for which Alwaleed declined comment.
The article goes on to report that ex-employees say “various thresholds — a top 20 or top 10 position — are stated goals in the palace.”
Number one this year is Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican telecom mogul who holds down the first spot for the fourth year in a row with an estimated net worth of $73 billion. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg came in at 13th with a net worth of about $27 billion.
The cranky prince, who made his fortune off bigtime investments, can’t be happy about this year’s ranking. He’s 26th, whether he likes it or not.
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