Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem (born 1955) is an Emirati businessman from Dubai who built the Jebel Ali Free Zone from 1985 and, as chairman and later group chairman and CEO of DP World, turned it into one of the world's largest port operators. He resigned his DP World posts on 13 February 2026 after his correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein was made public, and in July 2026 became executive chairman of Malaysia's MMC Ports. ^{1 2}

Bin Sulayem was born in 1955 in Dubai, then in the Trucial States; no text read gives a day or month. ^{1 3} He studied economics at Temple University in the United States, graduating with a BSc. ¹ His father was a key advisor to Dubai's ruling House of Maktoum. ¹ His son Ahmed Sultan bin Sulayem chairs the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, and his brother Mohammed Ben Sulayem is the racing administrator who heads the FIA; neither has a record in the museum, so the ties are carried here in prose. ¹

Bin Sulayem chaired the Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority from 1985 and the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation, and became chairman of DP World in 2007 and its group chairman and CEO in 2016, leading its growth into one of the world's largest port operators; he was also non-executive chairman of Virgin Hyperloop from 2018. ¹ On 13 February 2026 he resigned his DP World posts after United States Justice Department documents made his correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein public; he has not been charged with a crime in connection with Epstein, and the record presents the matter exactly as the cited news sources do. ^{1 2} In July 2026 he became executive chairman of MMC Ports, Malaysia's largest port operator. ¹

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