One of the richest people in the world has announced that he will move to the United States after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential elections.
Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt, who is a member of Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club and has a net worth of about $12.3 billion, said he was granted a green card for permanent residency last month.
Pratt, who is ranked 207th on Bloomberg’s list of the world’s 500 richest people, owns the Australian-based paper and recycling company Visy.
He also owns Pratt Industries, a corrugated packaging company based in Conyers, Georgia.
Writing on LinkedIn, he said he had decided to take the step because his entire family is US citizens and because of his business prowess in the country.
Pratt’s relationship with the president-elect came to light in 2023 amid reports that Trump had told him secrets about US nuclear submarines.
Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt, a member of Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club, said he was granted a green card for permanent residency last month.
Trump disputed the reports at the time, calling them “fake news” and calling Pratt a “red-headed weirdo.”
on LinkedIn mail In announcing his move, Pratt wrote: “Over the past 30 years we have invested to build 70 factories in the United States, creating 12,000 good-paying American manufacturing jobs.”
The 64-year-old billionaire added that he will remain chairman of Visy Australia and will return to the country regularly.
Visy is one of the largest private companies in Australia, while Pratt Industries is the fifth largest corrugated packaging company in the United States.
In 2019, Pratt invited Trump to visit one of Visy’s paper recycling plants in Wapakoneta, Ohio.
The group has annual sales of about $10 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
In 2023, ABC News first reported that Trump had discussed potentially sensitive information with Pratt shortly after leaving office.
The outlet claimed that the businessman had shared the information with several other people following revelations at Trump’s private club, of which he became a member in 2017.
The information was reported to be about how many nuclear warheads the United States has and how close they can get to Russian submarines.
Responding to the reports, Trump called Pratt a “redheaded weirdo from Australia” in a post on his social media site Truth Social.
‘I never talked to him about Submarines, but I did talk to him about creating jobs in Ohio and Pennsylvania, because that’s what it’s all about: JOBS, A GREAT ECONOMY, LOW TAXES, NO INFLATION, ENERGY DOMINANCE, STRONG BORDERS, NO ENDLESS WARS, LOW INTEREST RATES and much more!” Trump wrote in October 2023.
Pratt has since been interviewed by US law enforcement agencies, according to Bloomberg.
In 2023, ABC News first reported that Trump had discussed potentially sensitive information with Pratt shortly after leaving office (pictured: Trump and Pratt on a tour of a Pratt Industries plant in Ohio in 2019).
Pratt, worth about $12.3 billion, owns Australian paper and recycling company Visy, and Pratt Industries, a corrugated packaging company based in Conyers, Georgia.
Responding to the reports, Trump called Pratt a ‘redheaded weirdo from Australia.’
Pratt’s move to the United States comes after Trump’s victory in the presidential race against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
The stock market has soared on the news, with two of the three major U.S. stock indexes hitting all-time highs on Friday.
A landslide victory for Trump boosted bets on a pro-business agenda, with expectations of lower corporate taxes and looser regulations.
It has been suggested that billionaire businessman Elon Musk will join the Trump administration in some capacity, prompting the suggestion that other business and technology leaders could join him.
Joe Lonsdale, founding partner of venture capital firm 8VC and co-founder of controversial data mining company Palantir, said last week that America’s corporate A-team will reform government spending under a second Trump administration.
“We’re seeing a lot of top-level talent coming in to reform the government,” the businessman, who supported Trump in the election, said on CNBC.
“There’s a lot to cut, there’s a lot to fix.”