That is the name that one of his former lawyers calls Al-Waleed bin Talal. Wally is a major shareholder in Citicorp and a dozen other American corporations. He is a Saudi Prince who graduated from Menlo College in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I don’t know how close my lawyer friend was to Wally Ali but they did spend time together on Wally’s yacht and one of Wally’s many private airliners, a 747.
The main thing I learned about Wally Ali, concerns his role as a tribal leader in one of many Saudi tribes. Wally Ali has many palaces in Saudi Arabia but in the desert he has one giant tent.
At the entrance to the tent is a traditional Arab tribal room with carpets, highchair for the dignified Al-Waleed bin Talal, and servants to serve tea and biscuits. The back area of the tent, out of sight, has high tech computers, satellite transmission equipment and power management engines.
Wally Ali comes here several times a month, leaving behind his luxury global life, to sit and adjudicate tribal judicial matters.
This is the extraordinary contrast: a world renowned investor who has to sit in his Arab robes and adjudicate his tribes’ divorces, property conflicts concerning rugs and who killed Ahmed’s camel.
Arab tribalism in the Western World.