Vladimir Putin is a rich man, no doubt, he has a huge fortune, which is, reportedly, bigger than Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos’ ones combined.
Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are two US tech giants and the richest men of the planet but the recent data from Bloomberg’s tracker hints that Amazon CEO and Microsoft founder’s fortunes ($90 billion each) are less than Putin’s personal treasure.
According to Hermitage Capital Management CEO Bill Browder, Gates and Bezos are nothing compared to the Russian leader, whose personal fortune Browder “believes” to be $200 billion.
Putin’s fortune: what did it come from?
Browder has his own sources of information, he was a major investor in Russia during the chaotic 1990s. Newsweek even reported that Mr Browder took stakes in former state-run enterprises such as Gazprom.
In the 1990s, Browder cooperated with Putin in anticorruption efforts, that cooperation was ended in a non-surprising way – American found himself targeted by Putin, another consequence was the jailing and death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Later, the US judiciary system approved the Magnitsky Act sanctions against certain Russian oligarchs by the U.S.
Now, Mr Browder further claims Putin has a personal interest in reversing the Magnitsky Act, since many of those impacted by it “hold [Putin’s] money for him.” If Browder’s theories are accurate, then, Russia’s interference in the U.S. election may have had as much to do with defending Putin’s vast personal wealth as with advancing Russian state interests.
