Or How a Russian Oligarch Desperately Sought for Silver Platter and Tried to Impose Rules of Conduct on Kazakhstan and the Whole World.

Dagestani billionaire Magomed Musaev proudly told everyone that he supposedly bought the global publishing house Forbes, that he could open doors of any office in any country, that he could, as well, keep Elon Musk waiting in his reception for hours, and that Tony Robbins himself worked as a master of ceremonies at his birthday celebration.

With his revelations, which spread across many international media outlets, he put a number of well-known people in different countries in an awkward position and also managed to cause trouble in Kazakhstan. His brazen behavior, to put it mildly, did not contribute positively to the relationship between Kazakhstan and Russia.

The World Is His Oyster?

There’s a good Anglo-Saxon saying: ‘Do not halloo, till you are out of the wood’. It seems that the billionaire from Dagestan, Magomed Musaev, was not familiar with it. Recently, this gentleman became famous worldwide for his widely publicized deal to purchase the global publication house Forbes, as was reported by The Washington Post (WP) at the end of October. According to information published by the WP, supposedly 82 percent of the shares of the parent company of the famous business magazine ended up in the pocket of the Russian oligarch through a cunning contraption of shell companies. Formally, the deal, worth about $800 million, was prepared by 28-year-old automotive tech tycoon Austin Russell – however, according to the above-mentioned WP publication, as well as statements made by Musaev himself, in that deal, Russell was supposed to act as a frontman, while in reality, Forbes would have ended up in the hands of the Russian billionaire.

It’s not hard to guess why the Dagestani billionaire needed an American as a cover: the U.S. authorities would clearly not be pleased with the idea that one of the oldest and most symbolic publications of the country was taken over by a Russian with opaque income and a dubious reputation. And, of course, they did not allow that to happen. On November 21, several major international media outlets reported that Russell’s deal to buy the global ‘Forbes’ had fallen through. According to Bloomberg, citing a memo from Forbes’s Chief Executive Officer Mike Federle, the parent company of the Forbes magazine, Integrated Whale Media Investments, terminated the agreement to sell Forbes to an investor group led by Austin Russell.

The reasons for that decision were not detailed, but according to insiders, the deal was blocked specifically because of American law enforcement’s serious interest in Musaev’s role, which had previously been detailed in an article by the WP.  They say, that an investigation was commenced in regards to the Russian oligarch himself, as well as his involvement in the entire Forbes acquisition saga. Meanwhile, Russell and his company were strongly advised to give a wide berth to both Forbes and Musaev himself.

It’s interesting how things turn out when you prematurely trumpet your wildest dreams. Musaev had precipitantly informed all his partners and colleagues, as well as the publishers of the Forbes in some countries, that he was the owner of the ’empire’ known as Forbes. In a series of audio recordings released by various media, he can be heard discussing with evident satisfaction how, with the acquisition of Forbes, he acquired himself ‘the key to everything and everyone,’ a lever to influence mindsets across the globe.

“Should You Misbehave…”

Perhaps for us in Kazakhstan, all of this would be amusing, but not as intriguing as, for instance, the ignominious outcome of Mittal’s ’empire’ in Kazakhstan, if it weren’t for one ‘but’. Right before Putin’s recent visit to Astana, several key Russian media outlets reported that Magomed Musaev also had his sights set on Forbes Kazakhstan. It was reported that he was preparing to take over the Kazakh magazine from its current publisher Baitasov. In one of the audio recordings from the so-called ‘Musaev archive,’ published by the Ukrainian outlet ‘Apostrophe’ he tells a partner that he can easily take Forbes Kazakhstan away (and probably will) from the current owner, Armanzhan Baitasov, if the latter individual continues to ‘misbehave.’  ‘Misbehavior ‘, in that particular situation, implied being critical of Russia and its policies.

In the context of that curious story, it became intriguing to learn more about the business mogul named Magomed Musaev, what he is known for in his homeland, and how he managed to earn his billion-dollar capitals. That is particularly interesting because he positions himself primarily as a kind of visionary, intellectual, and thinker, and only secondarily as a successful investor and a businessman. Alas, the background of Mr. Musaev does not quite match such a bona fides.

Business A-La Dodgy 90s

The professional rise of the young Magomed Musaev in the distant 1990s began in a traditionally Oriental manner. Musaev was the son-in-law of the former head of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, and the latter, as a big Dagestani ‘padrino’, honoring the Caucasian tradition of supporting the youth, would always help Musaev. Due to Abdulatipov’s personal friendship with Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, in 1998, he tucked his son-in-law to the post of the first deputy general director at the All-Russian Exhibition Center (formerly AREC, VDNH today). By 2004, Musaev had become the general director of the AREC. Musaev had grand plans; he announced plans to arrange the hosting of the EXPO-2010 world exhibition at AREC and promised to build a ‘city of science, education, innovation’ there. In May 2001, the Russian government even officially submitted to the appropriate international committee a bid to host EXPO-2010.

However, no EXPO exhibition ever took place in Russia. But even then, complaints arose against Musaev for giving away the AREC facilities to commercial firms — for $17/sq. m. when the average rental price was $120 per square meter. In total, 120,000 (!) square meters of real estate occupied by various companies at the AREC remained unpaid. Huge sums of money, obviously, flowed into the pockets… of whom, do you think? No doubt, our hero had a ready answer to the sacramental question, ‘Hey, Soldato, how much do you need for happiness?’ By the way, it was precisely because of his voluptuous passion for unaccounted banknotes he called ‘cash’, as was trendy among Russian businessmen in the 90s, that he got stuck with the nickname ‘Casherick’ (if to mix ‘Cash’ and ‘Maverick’).

That is how Magomed Musaev started building up his present richness.

It’s very sad that during Musaev’s tenure, unique exhibits from the history of Soviet cosmonautics and aviation were lost. However, during his time, an entire private castle was illegally built on the premises of the AREC. It was inhabited by the owner of several casinos, multimillionaire Yakov Yakubov. The palace had no less than 30 bedrooms, a swimming pool, a sauna, and a luxurious banquet hall…

Musaev was scandalously dismissed from the exhibition center in 2009, but he was not imprisoned. Why? Because Orient is a riddle.

Not only in the capital city, but also in his homeland, the oligarch became involved in typical corruption stories. For example, while serving as the executive director of the Strategic Council under the Governor of Dagestan, he was implicated in two criminal cases – one pertaining to the embezzlements at the republican multidisciplinary college and another associated the purchase of computers for secondary schools. Instead of the planned 470 sets (each with 20-25 computers and special equipment), for which ‘astronomical’ 385 million rubles were allocated at the time, officials under Musaev’s leadership delivered only 47 sets to Dagestani schools – exactly, ten times less.

Another high-profile project, through which the oligarch swindled partners in his native Dagestan, was called Plug and Play Dagestan. That IT incubator, launched under the patronage of the same head of the Strategic Council, Magomed Musaev, was supposed to select promising IT projects and support them throughout their implementation. None of the first three selected projects ever got off the ground – and that was the end of it. The project remained a shell, with the remnants of its activity wound up in 2018. Throughout its existence, news search engines yield no more than 10 stories about that saga, for example: ‘An open championship of Dagestan in Rubik’s Cube assembly took place in the business incubator.’ The funniest part is that for all that sham, the discussed swindler would annually pull solid multimillion funding from local businesses and the state treasury.

Even more interestingly, Musaev later managed to organize a similar chop-shop in Kazakhstan under the name ‘StartUp Kazakhstan.’ Launched under the operation of his US-based company Global Venture Alliance (GVA), the project was loudly presented as ‘the first Kazakh initiative to attract the best international innovative startups to the RoK market.’ There was a lot of noise, and… The official website of the project is down, with the latest news dating back to January 2019.

There are many such murky stories surrounding Magomed Musaev, and they can be listed at length. They very vividly, like puzzle pieces, form a picture of how this gentleman’s current multi-billion dollar capitals might have been generated. And is it even a business? In fact, Magomed Musaev never had any legitimate business in Russia, only ‘breadwinning’ positions with the opportunity to promise much and be exceptionally eloquent. Hence, the logical question arises: is the origin of his multi-billion capitals in Russia legal, at all? Perhaps, he invested in his American projects (such as GVA, and later the failed deal with Forbes) what had been stolen and ‘laundered’ in Russia, either by him or his father-in-law?

 US law-enforcers are, apparently, digging into that, as well, now.

One Trillion Dollars to Handle Problems of Humanity

As a visionary and an intellectual, Magomed Musaev periodically ‘fires off’ various creative ideas, which, as we have already noticed, die without really coming to fruition. For instance, in 2011, along with like-minded individuals, he founded the ‘Institute of World Ideas’ Foundation. The goal was (quoting) ‘to create an action plan capable of preventing negative future scenarios, as well as to act as a mediator between the world of thinkers/scientists and the world of doers.’ (Does anyone understand this?) The project’s social media hasn’t been updated since 2013.

Another loud ‘philosophical’ brainchild of Magomed Musaev is the business community Sapiens Impact (Impact Future), that he founded in 2020. The organization intended, mind you, to gather no less than a trillion dollars (!) ‘to solve the common problems of humanity.’

The project is utterly utopian and, obviously for this reason, dead. The ‘Contacts’ section’s feedback form is non-responsive. There is no activity report or news, and no mentions of Impact Future’s activities were found in news feeds. And all this for a trillion dollars?

Our ‘think-tank’ also tried his hand in the field of education. At the end of 2019, Russia’s Sberbank, along with the Moscow government’s Department of Education and Science, launched the school accelerator SberZ, in which Musaev’s company Global Venture Alliance (GVA) was pronounced the operator. However, the project’s website is not working. In December 2020, the results of the project’s first year were summarized, but there was no mention of GVA, and there were no GVA representatives in the jury either. One year later, in December 2021, Sber scaled up the SberZ program for developing entrepreneurial talents among schoolchildren across Russia, but there was no mention of GVA among the project partners. Another empty shell.

He Casts an Eye on Kazakhstan!

Musaev has an astonishing ability to mislead people with his Caucasian, bazaar-style charm (unfortunately, there’s nothing else in his activities). One can only sympathize with those whose names have been tarnished in stories involving this figure. Take Austin Russell, for example. Musaev, who only owns the license to publish Forbes Russia (which is just one of the magazine’s dozens of editions), has been associated with close ties to investors of Russell’s projects as part of his attempt to acquire the global Forbes. Such a partnership today is akin to a mark of Cain in the US business world.

Unfortunately, the Kazakhstani establishment was no exception here. The Ukrainian resource ‘Apostrophe’ cites quotes from Musaev’s audio recordings, where he boasts about being able to kick open doors in Astana. For instance, this is what the gentleman says about the major Kazakhstani businessman Bolat Utemuratov in relation to his ambitions for Kazakh ‘Forbes.‘

‘As Musaev claims, Utemuratov personally told him that he had a lot of negative information regarding the new ruling regime, which needed to be gradually released in the international media, primarily in the Forbes under his control. Later, according to Musaev’s plan, Utemuratov would offer to curb the flow of exposures in exchange to security guarantees for himself, his partners, and his business… Therefore, Musaev does not doubt Utemuratov’s readiness to buy a share in the publication after he takes the publication for himself and the noise around the deal quiets down. «Bulat is far from being the only one. I know everyone there who is weighty, I communicate with many on brotherly terms, there are people who will also very much want to invest in my project,» Musaev brags,’ the journalists of ‘Apostrophe’ quote his words.

Of course, now he definitely won’t achieve anything. And in general, it seems that Musaev will now keep a low profile for a long time, as he will have to answer questions from the FBI investigators who blocked the deal for the global Forbes. In any case, Forbes Kazakhstan can sigh in relief. The other issue is that the boastful swindler, unwittingly, with his shameless blabbering, might have driven an additional wedge in the relations between Moscow and Astana, which are, to put it mildly, not on a positive trend right now.