![]() ![]() “It was a different time,” Milner said in an interview with The New York Times. He noted that the Twitter and Facebook deals occurred during a period of better diplomatic relations between Russia and the United States. Milner said he was not aware of any possible financial links between the Gazprom subsidiary and DST Global until ICIJ and its partners contacted him with questions in mid-September. He said the Russian bank, like all of his limited partner investors, did not gain any control over Twitter or DST Global’s investment vehicles. He stressed that VTB Bank was a passive investor in the Twitter deal arranged by his investment fund, DST Global. ![]() He said that less than 5 percent of his firm’s investment funding came from Russian government institutions. Milner acknowledged that VTB, the Russian bank, was one of the partners that helped bankroll the Twitter investment, as well as DST Global’s investment in Chinese e-commerce site JD.com. In response to questions from ICIJ and its partners, Milner said the investments his firm makes, including the Twitter and Facebook deals, have always been based on business merits and have nothing to do with politics. The news outlets’ reporting effort drew on public records contained in the Isle of Man’s corporate registry, documents from the 2016 Panama Papers leak and a new trove of confidential records, the Paradise Papers, obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The details of the Kremlin’s links to the deals were uncovered during a joint investigation, by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The New York Times, the BBC and other media partners. The Russian government’s ties to the investments were not previously known.įacebook and Twitter said they had properly reviewed Milner’s investments. It’s public knowledge that Milner put together large investments in Twitter and Facebook. tech giants’ role in the spread of Russian disinformation during Donald Trump’s successful campaign for the White House. These revelations come at a time when Congress is investigating the U.S. presidential election, the Kremlin had a financial interest in American social media. But the disclosure shows that years before Russia meddled in last year’s U.S. There is no indication that the Kremlin gained influence over Twitter or Facebook or received inside information about the firms as a result of investments associated with Milner. ![]() They also show that a subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom heavily funded an offshore company that partnered with DST Global in a large investment in Facebook.ĭST Global’s founder, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, and other partners in the deals reaped large gains when they sold their stakes shortly after Facebook’s initial public offering in 2012 and Twitter’s in 2013. The records show that one of the Kremlin-owned firms, VTB Bank, quietly directed $191 million into an investment fund, DST Global, that used the money to buy a large stake in Twitter in 2011. A major investor in Twitter and Facebook had financial ties to two Russian government-owned firms known as vehicles for the Kremlin’s politically sensitive dealings, newly unearthed documents show. ![]()
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