Age, Biography and Wiki
Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan was born on March 11, 1961, in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, which was then part of the Trucial States. He is a member of the Al Nahyan family, one of the most influential royal families in the UAE. His father, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, was the first president of the UAE. MbZ assumed the presidency in 2022, succeeding his brother Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
| Occupation | Politician |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 11 March 1961 |
| Age | 64 Years |
| Birth Place | Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, then part of the Trucial States |
| Horoscope | Pisces |
| Country |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There is limited information available regarding Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan's height and weight. Such personal details are not typically disclosed in public platforms for figures of his stature.
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Dating & Relationship status
MbZ has been married to Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan since 1981. The couple has several children, with Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed Al Nahyan being one of the notable offspring and the current heir apparent.
Mohamed is the third son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the first president of the UAE and the 16th ruler of Abu Dhabi. Mohamed became the crown prince of Abu Dhabi in November 2004, following the death of his father, when his brother, Sheikh Khalifa became the second president of the UAE and the ruler of Abu Dhabi. In 2014, Sheikh Khalifa suffered a stroke and Mohamed became the de facto president of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi. Mohamed officially became president of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, after being chosen by the UAE Supreme Council, following the death of his brother on 13 May 2022. On 29 March 2023, Mohamed appointed his son Sheikh Khalid as crown prince of Abu Dhabi and his future successor.
Scholars characterize the UAE under Mohamed as an authoritarian capitalist country, and a rentier state. In 2019, The New York Times named Mohamed as the most powerful Arab ruler, and was named as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2019 by Time magazine. He is known to be an opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran and its proxies in the Middle East. Since becoming de facto president, the UAE participated in the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the Syrian civil war and was officially part of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen until Mohamed disagreed with Saudi Arabia's approach in the war for its support of Al-Islah, a party which is known to have close connections with the Muslim Brotherhood but has maintained his support of the Southern Transitional Council. Mohamed fell out with the Obama administration on the Iran nuclear deal and supported the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. The UAE was a leading party in the Qatar diplomatic crisis, in which the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and other Arab countries like Egypt and Jordan severed diplomatic relations with Qatar based on claims that Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot organizations. Mohamed maintained a close relationship with US President Donald Trump, with reports suggesting that Mohamed was pushing Trump to take a tougher stance on Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. In September 2020, the UAE, alongside Bahrain, and later Morocco and Sudan, signed the Abraham Accords, an agreement to normalize diplomatic relationship with the State of Israel, a deal which was brokered by Trump. The UAE has more recently been involved in an economic rivalry with Saudi Arabia, and opposed Saudi efforts for OPEC+ production cuts.
He is the third son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who became the founder and first president of the United Arab Emirates and the 16th ruler of Abu Dhabi, and his third wife, Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Al Ketbi.
Mohamed attended schools in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi and a summer at Gordonstoun until the age of 18. In his youth, his father put Izzedine Ibrahim, a respected Egyptian Islamic scholar with connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, charge of his education.
In the 1980s as a young military officer, he enjoyed vacationing in Tanzania, where he met the Masai people and saw their customs and the extent of poverty in the country. Upon his return he went to see his father. His father asked him what he had done to help the people he had encountered. Mohamed shrugged and said he had not helped them because the people he met were not Muslims. Mohamed said that his father "clutched my arm, and looked into my eyes very harshly. He said, 'We are all God's creatures.'"
In November 2003, Sheikh Zayed appointed his son Mohamed as deputy crown prince of Abu Dhabi. Upon the death of his father, Mohamed became crown prince of Abu Dhabi in November 2004 and was appointed deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces in January 2005. Later that month, he was promoted to the rank of general. Since December 2004 he has also been the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, which is responsible for the development and planning of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and is a member of the Supreme Petroleum Council. He also served as a special adviser to his older half-brother, Khalifa bin Zayed, president of the UAE at the time.
Mohamed regards the United States as his chief ally and has a strong relationship with United States diplomats including US former Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis and US former national security advisor and counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke. As unpaid advisers, Mohamed consults them and follows their advice on combating terrorism and enhancing the UAE's military strength and intelligence. Mohamed had an initially good relationship with the Obama administration but the relationship deteriorated when Barack Obama did not consult with or even inform the UAE about the Iran nuclear deal. A further breakdown in relations was caused over their different positions on the Syrian civil war. According to an Emirati senior adviser, "His Highness felt that the UAE had made sacrifices and then been excluded." However, Mohamed continued talking to Obama regularly and offered him advice. Mohamed warned Obama that his proposed remedy for Syria — the Free Syrian Army rebels who were allied to Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood — would be worse than the regime of Bashar al-Assad. He also urged Obama to talk to the Russians about working together on Syria, and supported the Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war. The relationship deteriorated further when Obama made dismissive comments in a 2016 interview in The Atlantic, describing the gulf's rulers as "free riders" who "do not have the ability to put out the flames on their own". After the election of Donald Trump, Mohamed flew to New York to meet the president-elect's team and canceled a parting lunch with Obama. Mohamed shared similar ideas with President Trump regarding Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, as Trump has sought to move strongly against both. When Mohamed was a child, his father Sheikh Zayed unknowingly assigned a respected Muslim Brotherhood member, Ezzedine Ibrahim, as Mohamed's tutor. His tutor attempted an indoctrination that backfired. "I am an Arab, I am a Muslim and I pray. And in the 1970s and early 1980s I was one of them," Mohamed told visiting American diplomats in 2007 to explain his distrust of the Muslim Brotherhood, as they reported in a classified cable released by WikiLeaks. He stated, "I strongly believe these guys have an agenda." Trump also shared Mohamed's views on Qatar, Libya and Saudi Arabia, even over the advice of cabinet officials and senior national security staff. In August 2020, Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohamed jointly announced the establishment of formal Israeli–Emirati relations.
Mohamed maintains a strong relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin, and has brokered talks between Russia and the Trump administration. In 2016, Mohamed was found involved in the Russian meddling of the US presidential elections, where his adviser George Nader arranged a meeting for him and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Seychelles with US and Russian delegates, including Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev. Mohamed was named in the final report of special counsel Robert Mueller on the alleged collusion between Trump campaign and Russia, which the investigation later concluded that there was no collusion between the meeting that occurred with Mohamed. Mohamed's strong relationship with both Russia and the United States, as well as the influence he wields across both countries, has led The New York Times to label him as the Arab World's "most powerful ruler".
Political scientist Christopher Davidson has characterized Mohamed's tenure as de facto UAE leader as entailing "a marked and rapid intensification of autocratic-authoritarianism." Democracy indicators show "recent and substantial efforts to tighten up almost all remaining political and civic freedoms." According to Andreas Krieg, Mohamed's political ideology holds that strongman authoritarianism is the optimal governance system for the UAE. Krieg writes: "'MbZ envisaged the creation of a new Middle Eastern state... Statecraft would be the prerogative of the autocratic, centralized ruler whose transactional relationship with his subordinates was supposed to be governed by both means of accommodation and repression. The ideal strongman, from MbZ's point of view, was in control of the security sector, both military and law enforcement, and governed over a society emancipated from religious conservatism and empowered by capitalist market structures... Abu Dhabi's paranoia over political dissidence was further fuelled by the developments of the Arab Spring to which MbZ internally reacted by further curtailing the freedom of speech, thought and assembly in the country... MbZ's fierce state has moved against any civil society activism in the country outside state control.'"
Mohamed is married to Sheikha Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan. They married in 1980. They have nine children together, four sons and five daughters. They have two adopted daughters, and together they have 22 grandchildren. A lifelong fan of falconry, Mohamed established the Mohamed bin Zayed Falconry and Desert Physiognomy School with the goal of promoting and sustaining the ancient tradition by teaching it to new generations of Emiratis. He himself learned the practice from his father.
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| Husband | Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan (m. 1981) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan's net worth is estimated to be around $30 billion, although there are no precise figures available. His annual salary is reported to be approximately £1.475 billion, translating to about £122.98 million per month. His wealth is significantly influenced by his family's vast real estate holdings, interests in major corporations like ADNOC and Emirates Global Aluminium, and significant stakes in financial institutions.
In the early 1990s, Mohamed told Richard Clarke, then an assistant secretary of state, that he wanted to buy the F-16 fighter jet. Clarke replied that he must mean the F-16A, the model the Pentagon sold to American allies. Mohamed said that instead he wanted a newer model he had read about in Aviation Week, with an advanced radar-and-weapons system. Clarke told him that that model did not exist yet; the military had not done the necessary research and development. Mohamed said the UAE would pay for the research and development. The subsequent negotiations went on for years, and according to Clarke "he ended up with a better F-16 than the US Air Force had".
Career, Business and Investments
MbZ's career is marked by his military service and political leadership. He graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and has been involved in the UAE's military since 1979, serving in the Air Force. His political career accelerated when he became the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in 2004. He has been instrumental in shaping the UAE's economic and foreign policies, particularly focusing on diversifying the economy beyond oil.
His business interests span across various sectors:
As a result of Sheikh Khalifa's ill health, Mohamed became the de facto ruler of Abu Dhabi in January 2014 and was responsible for welcoming foreign dignitaries in the capital district of the United Arab Emirates in the city of Abu Dhabi. On 13 May 2022, he became the ruler of Abu Dhabi, following the death of his brother Khalifa. On 14 May 2022, he was elected as president of the United Arab Emirates.
The Emirates’ policy in Africa majorly involved three categories– Commercial, strategic and financial role. Under Mohamed’s leadership, the Emirates’ total investments into Africa increased to $110bn, as China was cutting down loans to the continent. In 2022 and 2023, the Emirates also pledged investments worth $97bn across ports, renewable energy, mining, agriculture, real estate, communications and manufacturing in Africa. In a decade, the UAE maintained a position amongst the top 4 investors of Africa. The Emirati influence in Africa has also been on the rise. Even though Dubai denied to extradite Gupta brothers, who were accused of looting South Africa by the authorities, Mohamed was welcomed in the state. Mohamed also donated around $1mn to upgrade a runway of an airport in the Eastern Cape province. In April 2023, Mohamed, his family and friends, traveled to Eastern Cape to stay at his private resort to celebrate Eid. The UAE’s presence was also seen in wars, including in Libya, Ethiopia and Sudan. In Ethiopia, the Emirates provided military support to the government in the war against the forces from Tigray. In 2019 and 2020, the UAE’s actions in the Libya war were controversial, where it supported the Libyan warload, Khalifa Haftar. In Sudan, the UAE was accused of fueling the war by supporting Hemedti’s Rapid Support Forces, which the Emirates has repeatedly denied. African leaders increasingly welcomed investments from the UAE, which offered a financial boost to Africa’s green energy sector. Between 2019-2023, Emirati investments in renewable energy amounted to $72 billion. However, the UAE’s rising climate finance commitments in Africa were questioned by activists and analysts. They raised concerns around the UAE’s rights records, treatment of migrant workers, support for hydrocarbons, and its failure to address environmental issues.
He previously served as the head of Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development (ADCED), Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Mubadala Development Company, Tawazun Economic Council, and Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge.
Mohamed is chairman of the Supreme Council for Financial and Economic Affairs and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. The council is the primary governing body of Abu Dhabi's financial, investment, economic, petroleum and natural resources affairs.
In 2023, The New Yorker reported that Mohamed was paying millions of euros to a Swiss-based private investigation firm, Alp Services, for orchestrating a smear campaign against its targets, including Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood. As part of this campaign, Alp posted false and defamatory Wikipedia entries and published propaganda articles against the targets. Multiple meetings took place between the Alp Services head, Mario Brero, and an Emirati official, Matar Humaid Al Neyadi. However, Alp's bills were sent directly to MbZ. The defamation campaign also targeted an American, Hazim Nada, and his firm Lord Energy, who is the son of the Muslim Brotherhood's long-time financier Youssef Nada and founder of Al Taqwa Bank which was formerly placed on the UN terror list by the US Treasury Department for allegedly financing Al-Qaeda. Nada had approached a former security official close to MbZ, Abdul Rehman al-Blouki, in hope of a financial settlement. However, Blouki warned him to not threaten the Emirates. The information was acquired through confidential documents obtained through a hack into Alp Services. An investigation, termed Abu Dhabi Secrets, was run into the documents. It further revealed that Mario Brero provided the UAE with a list of over 1,000 individuals and 400 organizations in Europe, including over 200 individuals and 120 organizations in France, who were falsely linked to radical Islam. A lawsuit against George Washington University, its Program on Extremism and Lorenzo Vidino revealed their involvement in rumors about an Austria-based academic researcher, Farid Hafez. He was targeted by the “Operation Luxor”, which included raids and asset seizures. The suit, which was a part of the New Yorker investigation, stated that Vidino acknowledged the UAE financed the operation through Alp Services.
A report by The Athletic referred to the 2020 unpublished judgement of the UEFA’s Club Financial Control Board (CFCB) as it disclosed that Mohamed bin Zayed’s former key senior aide, Jaber Mohamed, facilitated sponsorship payments to the Emirati-owned Manchester City F.C. The payments made through Etisalat were disguised as equity funding and were under the Premier League’s investigation over breach of UEFA’s financial rules. Between 2005-2022, Jaber Mohamed served as the General Director of the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince's Court (CPC), which takes care of MbZ’s public affairs. Another senior most aide to Sheikh Mohamed at the CPC, Mohamed Al Mazrouei, was also on Man City’s board during the club’s FFP violations. Citing the involvement of CPC, experts questioned whether MbZ was aware of the sponsorship payments and to what extent.
Mohamed has gifted AED 55 million to the UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, committed to raise US$100 million for the Reaching the Last Mile Fund, pledged US$50 million for children vaccine efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and contributed US$30 million to the Roll Back Malaria Partnership. The University of Texas chair for scientific and medical knowledge in cancer research is named after Mohamed as a result of a funding grant to MD Anderson Cancer Center. He organizes the Zayed Charity Marathon in New York City since its inauguration in 2005. The race raises awareness about kidney disease, and the proceeds go to the US's National Kidney Foundation.
Social Network
Like many high-profile figures in the Middle East, MbZ's social media presence is limited. His official engagements and announcements are primarily communicated through state media and official government channels.
Education
Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he received his military education. This background has been crucial in shaping his leadership roles within the UAE's military and political sphere.
Mohamed completed his education in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain and graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in April 1979. He later joined the UAE Armed Forces and held various posts before becoming a pilot in the UAE Air Force; he was promoted to general in 2005.
Mohammed later joined the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and graduated in April 1979. During his time at Sandhurst, he completed a fundamental armor course, a fundamental flying course, a parachutist course, and training on tactical planes and helicopters, including the Gazelle squadron. During his time in Sandhurst, he met and became good friends with Abdullah of Pahang, who would later become the 16th Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) of Malaysia. They were both officer cadets at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
Islam is the official religion of the UAE and there are laws against blasphemy, proselytizing by non-Muslims, and conversions away from Islam. The constitution of the UAE guarantees freedom of worship, unless it contradicts public policy or morals. The UAE government tightly controls and monitors Muslim practices. A government permit is required to hold a Quran lecture or distribute content related to Islam in an effort to combat decentralized preaching from Islamist groups. All imams must receive their salaries from the UAE government.
Over the course of the last years, the UAE has seen the rise of the Indian population and Hindu advocacy. The government has allowed the building of several privately-funded Hindu temples and the screening of the film The Kashmir Files.
