Bill Gates is back in the $100 Billion Club. Jeff Bezos had been getting lonely.

Of the 2,800 or so billionaires tracked by Bloomberg, 145 are worth at least $10 billion, making them decabillionaires. Now, the world contains two centibillionaires simultaneously. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, once the world's richest person, has again eclipsed the $100 billion threshold, joining Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos in the exclusive club, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Gates's fortune, now $100 billion on the nose, hasn't reached such heights since the dot-com boom, when Bezos was only beginning his march up the world's wealth rankings. The Amazon founder is now worth $145.6 billion, having added $20.7 billion this year alone, while Gates has gained $9.5 billion. These two fortunes underscore a widening wealth gap in the U.S., where those with the most capital are accumulating riches the fastest.

That’s also a worldwide trend. France's Bernard Arnault has an $86.2 billion fortune, equal to about 3 percent of his country's economy. The net worth of Spain's Amancio Ortega represents 5 percent of that nation's gross domestic product. And then there's Bidzina Ivanishvili, who's worth about a third of Georgia's GDP.

The Gates and Bezos megafortunes may not last long. Gates has donated more than $35 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and said he intends to give away at least half of his wealth. Bezos, meanwhile, may be about to cede some of his fortune for a different reason: He and his wife Mackenzie are divorcing. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranks the world's 500 wealthiest people. The combined net worth of the group has surged $505.8 billion this year to $5.3 trillion.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-two-centibillionaires-worlds-richest-men-20190320-story,amp.html

Billionaires Find Their Hollywood Ambition Greenlights Political Scrutiny

The billionaire set has always looked upon movies as diverting toys. They offer glitz and glamour, but also pose one ominous trap: public scrutiny. This was underscored by breaking news this week involving three high-profile billionaires: Steven Mnuchin, Arnon Milchan and Rupert Murdoch.

Mnuchin, the very social but publicity-shy Secretary of the Treasury, has co-financed and produced movies like Gravity and Dunkirk while hanging with Brett Ratner and his Warner Bros friends. But now that he’s steering delicate trade negotiations with China, these ties are raising conflict-of-interest questions that Congress is actively probing. Milchan’s financial “take” from Bohemian Rhapsody should rival that of any other producer in Hollywood history and further lift his profile as a movie mogul. The problem: All that also focused attention on bribery allegations made by Israeli criminal investigators – charges that could next month unravel the present Israeli regime and curtail Milchan’s formidable political clout. Then there’s the unique case of another billionaire hero of the political right: Murdoch. In selling Fox to Disney for $71 billion, he exponentially enriched himself and his family. But the deal also riveted public and political attention on Fox News, his surviving showpiece, thus triggering what looks to be a chain reaction of probes and advertiser revolts. It would be naïve to suggest that these issues would pose lasting setbacks for these illustrious figures. On the other hand, all three are keenly aware of this uncomfortable reality: They’re being watched. And they don’t like being watched.

Mnuchin’s adventures in Hollywood have been especially instructive, and bumpy. A friend of Ryan Kavanaugh, he served as co-chairman of his ill-fated Relativity Media, loudly proclaiming several co-ventures in China, only shortly to dissolve them. Later, Mnuchin invested in two high-profile slate deals, Dune Entertainment and RatPac Dune, which co-funded much of last year’s Warner Bros slate. That deal imploded as a result of Brett Ratner’s harassment charges. A Ratner-Mnuchin friend and partner, James Packer, later figured importantly in Kevin Tsujihara’s resignation — Packer allegedly introduced the now-dismissed Warner Bros chairman to actress Charlotte Kirk. When Mnuchin assumed his role in the Trump cabinet, he divested his interest in some of his film properties to his wife, producer-actress Louise Linton, according to filed documents, and is still owed money under the deal. Meanwhile, he continues to champion the cause of Hollywood films in the China talks. Robert Lighthizer, the top trade negotiator, testified last month that film revenues were “absolutely a priority” in the trade talks. And he highlighted Mnuchin’s role: “He knows a great deal about that industry, a lot more than I do,” he testified. Mnuchin again made news last week, pledging to block the release of President Donald Trump’s tax returns.

Milchan loves hatching plots for movie thrillers, and his involvement with next month’s Israeli election is packed with appropriate intrigue. According to Israeli intelligence, Milchan gave extravagant gifts to Benjamin Netanyahu in return for political influence and other favors. A billionaire many times over, the Palestine-born Milchan has long been a force in Israeli politics, claiming his background was in the chemical industry while others said he was also a major arms supplier. Milchan’s role in the election coincides with legal headaches in Hollywood. Investors in the movie Rules Don’t Apply, directed by Warren Beatty, are suing Milchan for $50 million, claiming that his involvement in the Israeli scandal proved so distracting that he neglected to fulfill his responsibilities in distributing and marketing the Beatty movie. (The film grossed $3.9 million, having cost $30 million to produce.) The suit was filed by Ron Burkle, Steve Bing and Ratner, all of whom were substantial investors. As the long-term chief of New Regency, Milchan has helped fund dozens of movies, from Pretty Woman to The Revenant. Two years ago when I was lunching with Milchan in Malibu, he expressed his high hopes for the Beatty movie but was negotiating extensive notes on the screenplay. Our meal was interrupted by a call from Netanyahu. I was not privy to the conversation, but, hanging up, Milchan observed, with a wry smile, that talking script with Beatty was the only exercise he found more complex than discussing politics with Netanyahu.

https://deadline.com/2019/03/steven-mnuchin-rupert-murdoch-arnon-milchan-hollywood-controversy-political-scrutiny-1202579672/amp/

Star witness: Brawling, scheming spy linked to Trump, Moscow

NEW YORK — The way Felix Sater tells it, his life is a screenplay just waiting to be written, with tales of drunken brawling, Wall Street rip-offs, international spying and a behind-the-scenes role in Donald Trump’s effort to build a skyscraper in Russia. Sater, a Soviet emigre who befriended Trump in the 2000s and helped push the Trump Tower Moscow project during the 2016 presidential campaign, hasn’t shied away from his past on both the right and wrong sides of the law, even as he has become a key figure in the House Democrats’ investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia.

Sater, 53, is due to testify in public Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee about his dealings with the Trump Organization and the Moscow discussions. That will be followed the next day by questioning behind closed doors before the House Judiciary Committee.

So just who is Felix Sater? When he was in his late 20s, Sater served 15 months in jail and permanently lost his stockbroker’s license for stabbing a man in the face with the stem of a broken margarita glass at a Manhattan bar. They were arguing over a woman neither of them knew, Sater said. A few years later, in 1998, Sater turned state’s evidence against New York’s Genovese and Bonanno crime families after getting caught in a $40 million pump-and-dump stock fraud, in which shady brokers drove up the price of stocks they secretly owned and then sold them, causing prices to crater and wiping out unsuspecting investors. He has also boasted of his exploits in the spy game, joking privately that he is “the Jewish James Bond.” (He said in a recent interview that he is in frequent contact with a Hollywood screenwriter in hopes of getting a movie made about himself.)

Testifying before Congress in 2017, he claimed to have helped the government track Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and assembled a mercenary team of ex-Russian special forces and Afghan fighters in an attempt to kill bin Laden. He also said he helped foil plots to assassinate President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, provided the government with intelligence on North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and assisted in upending Russian cyberattacks on the U.S. financial system.

How much of that is true is unclear, since U.S. intelligence agencies don’t typically talk about such things. But former Attorney General Loretta Lynch acknowledged some of Sater’s cooperation when asked about him at her 2015 confirmation hearing. Lynch, the former chief federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, said Sater had provided “information crucial to national security and the conviction of over 20 individuals, including those responsible for committing massive financial fraud and members of La Cosa Nostra.”

Sater’s guilty plea in the stock case and his cooperation with the government were kept under wraps for more than a decade. The case file wasn’t made public until 2012, three years after he was sentenced to probation and a $25,000 fine. Some documents are still under seal. Given the secrecy, Sater was able to reboot his life in 2003 as an executive at Bayrock Group LLC, a real estate development company formed by a Kazakh-born former Soviet official. Sater’s work there led to lawsuits from people who said they wouldn’t have done business with Sater if they had known about his past. One lawsuit, brought by two former employees, alleged that Bayrock was started with backing from “oligarchs and money they stole from the Russian people” and that the company was “substantially and covertly mob-owned and operated.” The company has denied the allegations. It was through Bayrock that Sater got to know Trump. The company moved into Trump Tower and presented Trump with a plan to build a Manhattan hotel, a $450 million, 46-story project that was completed in 2008 and originally called Trump SoHo.

http://amp.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/24/felix-sater-linked-trump-and-russia-set-testify/