The Secret Foreign Roots of Tech Titans’ New California City

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The Secret Foreign Roots of Tech Titans’ New California City​

Dec. 28, 2023 9:00 pm ET

When the backers of a secretive effort to amass nearly $1 billion worth of land in California finally unveiled their vision this past summer, they did so in great detail. They announced plans to build a new city near San Francisco. They listed the Silicon Valley titans involved.

California Forever, as the project was called, described itself as “a California company backed by California investors.”

What California Forever didn’t highlight was its foreign roots. Its creator is a Czech-born entrepreneur who became an American citizen midway into the land-buying venture. His right-hand man in the project for much of the time is South African.

Foreign involvement in deals like California Forever’s is a potential trigger for a U.S. government national security review, and Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader, and Thomas Mather, who manages investments for the family of a South African billionaire, took steps to play down their central roles, according to a Wall Street Journal review of legal documents, property and corporate records, publicly available data and interviews with people involved.

Read the full article:

WSJ News Exclusive | The Secret Foreign Roots of Tech Titans’ New California City

Silicon Valley investors’ plans for a new city near a military base were hatched by a pair of foreign nationals.

www.wsj.com