Saudi Arabia, China, and the Harvard Endowment Connection

Harvard enjoys a massive endowment of over $53 billion – but there’s a dark side to all that wealth. On March 5, Harvard Management Company, which runs the famed university’s endowment, named a new member to its board of directors, and he's a top executive at a company with deep ties to China and Saudi Arabia, two nations notorious for human rights violations.

As always, the watchword should be follow the money. Martin Escobari, co-president and head of “Global Growth Equity” at General Atlantic, one of the largest private equity firms in the world, is the newest member of the board at Harvard Management Co., which oversees the vast treasure chest. General Atlantic’s business vision just happens to dovetail perfectly with Harvard’s funding and international partnerships. It’s all one ecosystem.

Mideast Money Pipeline

“Harvard received more than $100 million in contributions from government sources in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bangladesh in the last four years, according to data released by the Department of Education,” The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, reported on February 28.

General Atlantic is right there with them.

“In a groundbreaking expansion, General Atlantic ... has chosen Saudi Arabia as the location for its first office in the Middle East,” R Consultancy Group reported in November of 2024. “This strategic move underscores the firm’s commitment to the region and highlights the growing appeal of Middle Eastern markets, especially Saudi Arabia, to international investors.”

R Consultancy is a British firm that “specializes in helping international companies expand into Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”

“An essential factor in General Atlantic’s move is the sheer size and influence of Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, which collectively hold more than $4 trillion in assets,” R Consultancy stressed. “These funds, particularly from Saudi Arabia, have become substantial sources of capital for global fund managers.”

Then there's the country overwhelmingly identified as the leading geopolitical foe of the United States today.

Harvard, a Private Equity CEO, and a Chinese University

“Harvard received the most non-governmental funding from England, Switzerland, China and Hong Kong,” The Harvard Crimson report continued. As Liberty Nation News documented in 2024, American universities are deeply tied to Chinese money via lucrative “academic research” and “training expertise” contracts with the Asian communist superpower and the various companies and organizations it controls.

Harvard’s connection to the Beijing regime is too exhaustive to list in one article.

“Hosted within the Harvard Kennedy School, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation is funded by several Chinese Communist Party-backed entities. Among its donors are China Southern Power Grid Corp, whose management is ‘directly appointed by China’s central government,’” The National Pulse reported in 2021.

Oh, but it gets worse. The Harvard Kennedy School’s Rajawali Foundation Institute For Asia actually helps train Chinese regime apparatchiks.

“Established in 2001, China’s Leaders in Development program was widely recognized by the Chinese government as one of the best overseas training programs for government officials,” the institute boasts at its portal on the Harvard website. “Taught both at Tsinghua University, China and Harvard Kennedy School, this multi-week training program was specifically designed to help prepare senior local and central Chinese government officials to more effectively address the ongoing challenges of China’s national reforms.”

In March 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping met “with representatives from American business, strategic and academic communities,” state-run media outlet China Daily reported. The meeting “is widely considered as a significant step China has taken to stabilize the expectations of foreign investors with regard to the Chinese market."

Harvard was on hand to represent US academia.

“Evan G. Greenberg, chair of the Board of Directors of the National Committee on US-China Relations, Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman and CEO of Blackstone, Cristiano R. Amon, president and CEO of Qualcomm, Graham Allison, founding dean of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Craig Allen, president of the US-China Business Council, spoke at the meeting,” China Daily related.

Harvard professors and staffers have frequently associated with the National Committee on US-China Relations (NCUSCR), which made headlines in Nov. 2023 when it co-hosted an infamous dinner in honor of Xi along with the US Chamber of Commerce as the Chinese head of state visited San Francisco. But guess who else is attached to this rabidly pro-China group? “The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations held our annual black-tie Gala Dinner on Tuesday, October 15 2024,” a post on the NCUSCR website proclaims. “This year, we celebrated William E. Ford, chairman and chief executive officer of General Atlantic, for his enormous contributions to constructive Sino-American relations.”

Ford has been intimately involved with the group for years.

“Mr. Ford has been a board member of the National Committee for almost a decade and strongly supports our mission to promote forthright dialogue, mutual understanding, and cooperation between the United States and China,” the organization states. This is the CEO of the private equity giant that helps manage Harvard’s endowment.

General Atlantic’s ties to China are indeed prolific. The company has invested in 56 Chinese companies, including ByteDance, the controversial owner of TikTok.

“Ford currently serves on the board of BlackRock [and] ByteDance,” his bio at Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum reveals. “He is also involved with several educational and not-for-profit organizations including The Rockefeller University ... the Council on Foreign Relations and Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management.” Tsinghua is the Chinese university that partners with Harvard to train Beijing government officials. See how it all ties together?

General Atlantic currently lists online fashion retailer Shein as part of its China portfolio on its website. That corporation is in the news today as it faces numerous accusations of selling products manufactured by Uyghur slave labor. Forget the human rights posturing by campus radicals - the bottom line at Harvard is being steered by "globalist" international finance concerns. And morality does not reign supreme in that coldly calculating milieu.