Despite this, Harry and Meghan have a game plan and they have adhered to it. It is well thought out and maximises their chances of success, though this is far from assured, at least at the level and to the extent to which they aspire. The tariff for their services has been set so high that only billionaires and their ilk can afford them. The only billionaire couple to step forward incontrovertibly has been Bill and Melinda Gates. With their international profile as humanitarians involved in global health, and with similarly woke credentials, the Gateses had everything they could possibly want in terms of prestige except for a royal couple in their stable. Now they have the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and it will be interesting to see how this relationship evolves. To what extent will the four of them embark upon cooperative arrangements or joint ventures? They have enough in common to forge a strong, ongoing relationship, and behind the scenes they have been developing it.
There have even been rumours that Bill Gates might run for president in 2024 or even 2028. If that is so, it will only be a matter of time before some journalist sympathetic to the Sussexes suggests Meghan as a running mate.
Life at the top is not so cluttered that couples with a lot in common can fail to welcome each other. As mentioned earlier, the human element should never be discounted. Bill and Melinda Gates have so few other couples who share their level of prestige, allied to their political and humanitarian sympathies, that it should be no surprise that they have relished associating with a couple whose identities reflect theirs in significant ways. As that couple has brought to the relationship something they lack, they have reciprocated commensurately.
However, the couples are clearly unequal in important ways. Meghan and Harry are paupers relative to the Gateses. This has proven to be a win-win situation for all concerned, similar to the relatively poor King Juan Carlos of Spain and the tremendously rich King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. When the seriously rich regard themselves as being on a par with others who are significantly poorer than themselves, what is a large sum to one party might be a bagatelle to the other. It is whispered in certain circles that the Microsoft magnate has assisted the Sussexes, albeit in a minor way compared with how Abdullah rescued Juan Carlos.
Of course, there are important differences between the circumstances of Juan Carlos, who was a reigning king with all the constraints imposed by his position, and the flexibility that Harry and Meghan have created for themselves as they set about making their fortune. Nevertheless, it is instructive to learn that in 2008 the Saudi monarch ordered his Foreign Policy Advisor and sometime Minister of Foreign Affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, to pay $100m into an account held by the Panamanian company Lucum, owned beneficially by the Spanish sovereign, at the Swiss Private Bank Mirabaud. This was an outright gift, as the form regarding the origin of funds confirmed, and shows how generous a rich man can be to what he called his poorer ‘brother’.
Of course, Harry and Meghan’s financial ambitions far exceed a capital sum as paltry as $100m. Their ‘people’ have been predicting that they can earn two, three, and five times that amount in a year. It remains to be seen if the couple will be billionaires in five years, as they and their advisors hope. In the meantime, it is not suggested that Bill and Melinda Gates have so far been tempted to endow Harry and Meghan with such a generous gift, but the word in certain circles is that they have eased the path of the couple by helping them while they have been settling into their new life in California.
Certainly, some benefactor has been assisting them. Even with Prince Charles’s private contributions, Harry and Meghan’s expenditure as they settled into California life far outweighed their means. Even their security was a problem. They no longer enjoyed the status of ‘internationally protected people’ and therefore did not qualify for state funding for their security. Indeed, their security bills had been one of the problems which had convinced the Canadians that they would prefer not to have them resident in their country. Harry and Meghan decamped from Canada to California a day or two before the Canadians withdrew their protection. The Americans also refused to assume that burden, which was hardly surprising considering Meghan’s withering comments about Trump being divisive, misogynistic and a host of even worse remarks delivered both publicly and privately, while Harry was recorded opining to Russian pranksters, who he thought were Greta Thunberg and her father, that the American president had ‘blood on his hands’ because his climate change policies do not accord with theirs.
I am reliably informed that there is no way Prince Charles would be coughing up £4m per annum for protection even if he had it to spare - which he does not.
Living the billionaire lifestyle requires serious income. If you’re Meghan and Harry, you’d be at least twenty times too poor to cover even the basics. While house hunting for the California mansion that would consume at least half your capital, there’d be the house to rent, costing thousands per diem in excess of your overall income. Then there’s be the staff to pay and everything else that would set you back a sum you don’t have in income.
Short of a few good deals bringing in a minimum of $30 or 40m per annum, it becomes impossible to maintain this lifestyle without outside assistance. Only with a benefactor who has been as
