Harry and Meghan's hideaway, the Kremlin-linked tech tycoon and a web of intrigue: Tantalising questions about billionaire Yuri Milner who met the prince at elite 'Google Camp' last summer
Does anyone get creeped out by the looks of this couple???? Yikes if kinda frightening really
Yuri Milner, arguably most influence investor online is renting house to Sussexes
Prince Harry met him at the Google Camp conference in Sicily last year
Milner is on US Treasury Department watchlist of people with ties to the Kremlin
Amid the dozens of A-list celebrities and social media Titans gathered in isolated splendour on the Sicilian coast last summer, the interaction between two of the more camera-shy guests went largely unnoticed.
Prince Harry was just one of the instantly recognisable world figures attending ‘Google Camp’, the VIP conference organised by the U.S. internet behemoth to tackle climate change
But few outside the Silicon Valley contingent will have identified the short, shaven-headed physicist with whom HRH was in conversation.
Yuri Milner (pictured with his wife, Julia), arguably the most influential investor in the 'dot-com' universe, is letting the Sussexes stay at his Vancouver £10.7million Vancouver mansion for free
His name was Yuri Milner, and he is arguably the most influential investor in the ‘dot-com’ universe.
The Google Camp invitees — Harry made a speech on eco-tourism while appropriately ‘barefoot’, according to reports — drew scorn from afar by arriving on Sicily in no fewer than 114 carbon-dumping private jets.
A number of masters of the universe then compounded this paradox by shuttling to the £1,500-a-night Verdura Golf & Spa Resort by helicopter.
Mr Milner, though, had no need to slum it in the five-star accommodation provided by Google.
January 2018, his was one of more than 200 names on a U.S. Treasury Department watchlist of wealthy Russian politicians and oligarchs with ties to the Kremlin who could face sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. Pictured is Meghan Markle with Yuri's close friend's wife
For the duration of the event, he was based on a superyacht called Andromeda, anchored a launch ride offshore. The 107-metre vessel has a helipad, cabins for 30 overnight guests and a crew of 43. It was recently bought for $250 million — by a mystery buyer — from the richest man in New Zealand
During the three-day Google symposium, Mr Milner hosted an on-board cocktail party for his fellow eco-warriors, who included Leonardo Di Caprio, Tom Cruise, Orlando Bloom and Harry Styles.
Mr Milner is ‘quite shy’, a source close to him told the Mail, ‘but he likes to collect celebrities’.
And according to the source, it was at the Google Camp beano last summer that Mr Milner added Prince Harry to his collection.
The ramifications of their ‘substantive’ chat at the smart Italian resort may prove more profound than the passing pleasure of an obscure financier.
Following the emergency ‘Megxit’ summit at Sandringham on Monday, the Queen issued a statement in which she said there would be a ‘transition period’ in which Harry and Meghan — the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — would divide their time between Canada and the UK.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7900843/Harry-Meghan-Markle-bombshell-Questions-Kremlin-linked-billionaire-Yuri-Milner.html