Monday, August 25th, 2008

If you’re Donald Trump, it’s not hard to get celebrities to show up for your party. And if you’re a powerful and wealthy sultan, it’s even easier.
An exclusive party to launch the Trump International Hotel & Tower Dubai was thrown by Donald Trump and His Excellency Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem at a private estate in Bel-Air on Saturday night.
And the stars definitely came out for this bash.
The long black limo list included Hilary Swank, Russell Crowe, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Orlando Bloom, Hayden Panettiere, Ali Larter, Brent Bolthouse, Aaron Eckhart, Kate Walsh, HBO honcho Colin Callendar, Wolfgang Puck, and more. Heidi Klum, Naomi Watts and Demi Moore turned out for the NY version June 23.
So who is this sultan dude? He’s the founder-chairman of Dubai World, a holding company that has $80 billion-$100 billion in assets, including one of the world’s largest port operators, a massive private equity house, retailer Barneys New York, and Nakheel, developer of the new hotel and Dubai’s palm-tree-shaped man-made islands.
He also owns the port operating subsidiary that had control of six U.S. ports until Congress objected to handing the keys to a Middle Eastern company.