Who is Anthony Pratt, the billionaire with whom Donald Trump shared nuclear secrets?

An Australian billionaire is at the centre of an explosive new Donald Trump controversy. It is alleged that Trump, shortly after leaving office, shared classified information regarding America’s nuclear submarines with billionaire Anthony Pratt. Trump allegedly did so at a meeting of his Florida private members club Mar-a-Lago. Pratt is himself accused of passing on the top-secret information to dozens of other people. But who is Pratt? What do we know about him? Let’s take a closer look: Who is Pratt? With a net worth of $9.2 billion, Pratt is one of the richest men in Australia and the world’s 213th wealthiest person, according to Bloomberg.

The head of one of the world’s largest packaging companies, Pratt is known as Australia’s ‘cardboard king’.

As per The Guardian, Pratt owns Visy packaging company in Australia, has Pratt Industries in the US as well as a recycling firm in Europe. As per Bloomberg, Pratt is chairman of both Visy and Pratt Industries. Visy, founded by Pratt’s father, is Australia’s second-biggest private company. As per Bloomberg, the company deals in recycling paper, glass and other products In the US, Pratt got his start in the United States in 199 by managing a money-losing paper mill in Macon that the company sold. However, Pratt Industries has grown to 71 sites in 25 states, and now says it’s the fifth-largest US maker of corrugated packaging. Pratt Industries claims to be the largest Australian-owned employer of Americans. As per Bloomberg, Pratt Industries is said to have assets worth around $12 billion. As per Smart Company, Pratt was the country’s biggest political donor for the 2020-2021 FY. Pratt, through his company Pratt Holdings, donated $1.29 million to the Liberal Party. One of his key holding companies has been accused of paying exceedingly little taxes since 2013. As per Bloomberg, Pratt lives alternately in both Melbourne and New York. Pratt and Trump As per ABC, Pratt is said to have become a member of Mar-a-Lago in 2017 – shortly after Trump entered the Oval Office. Pratt then visited Mar-a-Lago around a dozen times in the next few years where he met Trump and even wined and dined with the then president and a US senator. Pratt also visited the White House in 2018. That visit came in the backdrop of Trump meeting Morrison. [caption id=“attachment_13212262” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Former president Donald Trump and Anthony Pratt have met nearly a dozen times over the years. AP[/caption] In 2019, at the opening of a factory in the US, then Australian prime minister Scott Morrison declared Pratt the ‘Don Bradman’ of job creation. Morrison and Pratt were at the time accompanied by then president Donald Trump. “We’re here to celebrate a great opening and a great gentleman,” Trump said at the time as per ABC.

“Anthony is one of the most successful men in the world – perhaps Australia’s most successful man.”

Pratt responded that he"would not have invested in this plant if it wasn’t for President Trump’s election, [which] has given us an incredible faith in investing in America." However, Pratt has claimed he now supports the current US government headed by Joe Biden. As per ABC, Pratt was quoted as telling investigators he is a person who tends to just “side with the king.” Nuclear row This fresh row came after news of an April 2021 meet at Trump’s club hit the headlines. According to ABC, the Australian billionaire, seeking to make conversation, told the former president he thought Australia should start buying its submarines from the US. In response, Trump allegedly told the businessman the exact number of nuclear warheads US submarines routinely carry, and precisely how close they can get to Russian submarines without being detected, the news outlet said. ABC News, which first reported the story, said Pratt later shared sensitive details about the US submarines with “scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists”. Pratt told investigators he wasn’t sure if Trump was telling him the truth or simply bluffing. He also added that Trump hadn’t shared any government documents with him at that or any other meeting. Pratt was then told not to share the information with anyone else, as per ABC. Pratt may now be called by prosecutors to testify against Trump in his classified documents trial, which is due to start next May in Florida.

Sources told the Times that Trump’s disclosures “potentially endangered the US nuclear fleet”.

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Federal prosecutors already investigating Trump for holding classified material at Mar-a-Lago after he left office, interviewed Pratt twice about the incident, the reports said. Aside from the classified documents case, Trump faces three other indictments: one federal and one in Georgia over his efforts to overturn his election loss and stay in power, and one in New York stemming from election-eve hush money payments in 2016 to a porn star. Trump is currently on trial in New York on charges of wildly and fraudulently inflating the value of his assets so as to get better terms from banks and insurance companies. With inputs from agencies