How to get a meeting with the UAE’s $2.3 trillion man

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Zell discovered early on the power of having the right connections. His introduction to the royals began at the dawn of the UAE’s modern gatekeeper era. In 2005, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Sheikh Tahnoon’s younger brother, who’s widely known as ABZ, was visiting New York, Zell recounted in a 2022 interview. The royal family had taken an interest in his ­affordable-housing developments in Mexico, so the two men arranged a meeting. They hit it off, and ABZ, who’d be tapped as UAE minister of foreign affairs the following year, suggested Zell fly to the Arabian Desert to pay...