Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (born 11 March 1961), also known as MBZ or MbZ, is an Emirati royal and politician who has served as the third president of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Abu Dhabi since 2022. He was the de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates from 2014 to 2022, ruling for his brother Sheikh Khalifa.
Mohamed completed his education in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, and graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1979. He joined the UAE Armed Forces, and held various posts, before becoming a pilot in the UAE Air Force; he was promoted to general in 2005.
Mohamed is the third son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the first president of the UAE and 16th ruler of Abu Dhabi. Mohamed became the crown prince of Abu Dhabi in 2004, following the death of his father, when his brother, Sheikh Khalifa, became the second president of the UAE, and the ruler of Abu Dhabi. In 2014, Sheikh Khalifa suffered a stroke, and Mohamed became the de facto leader of the UAE. Following Sheikh Khalifa's death in May 2022, Mohamed became the ruler of Abu Dhabi and was elected president of the UAE by the Federal Supreme Council. In March 2023, Mohamed appointed his son Sheikh Khaled as his successor and crown prince of Abu Dhabi.
In 2019, The New York Times named Mohamed as the most powerful Arab ruler, and he was named as one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2019 by Time magazine. He is an opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as of Iran and its proxies in the Middle East. Since he became de facto leader, the UAE participated in the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the Syrian civil war. He also took part in the Saudi-led intervention in the Yemeni civil war, until a disagreement over Saudi Arabia's support of Al-Islah, a Yemeni party connected with the Muslim Brotherhood, while Mohammed continued to support the Southern Transitional Council. The UAE was a leading actor in the Qatar crisis, in which the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other Arab countries severed diplomatic relations with Qatar, based on accusations that Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood and off-shoot organizations. Intervening in the Sudanese civil war, Mohamed has been the main backer of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
He fell out with the Obama administration over the US-Iran nuclear deal, and supported US withdrawal from the deal. Mohamed maintained a close relationship with US President Donald Trump, with reports suggesting Mohamed was pushing Trump to take a tougher stance on Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2020, the UAE, alongside Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, signed the Abraham Accords, an agreement to normalize diplomatic relationship with Israel, brokered by Trump. The UAE has had an economic rivalry with Saudi Arabia, and opposed Saudi efforts for OPEC+ production cuts. Family and early life Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was born at Oasis Hospital in Al Ain on 11 March 1961, in what was then known as the Trucial States.
He is the third son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who became the founder and first president of the United Arab Emirates and the 16th ruler of Abu Dhabi, and his third wife, Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Al Ketbi.
Mohamed has 18 brothers: Hamdan, Hazza, Issa, Nahyan, Saif, Tahnoun, Hamed, Mansour, Falah, Theyab, Abdullah, Omar, Khalid, the late Khalifa, the late Sultan, the late Saeed, the late Nasser, and the late Ahmed. In addition to these, he has eleven sisters.
He has five younger full brothers: Hamdan, Hazza, Tahnoun, Mansour, and Abdullah. They are referred to as Bani Fatima (the sons of Fatima).
Education
Mohamed attended schools in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi until the age of 18. He also spent a summer at Gordonstoun in Scotland. In his youth, his father put Izzedine Ibrahim, a respected Egyptian Islamic scholar with connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, in charge of his education.
Mohammed later joined the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, graduating in April 1979. While there, he completed a fundamental armor course, a fundamental flying course, a parachutist course, and training on tactical planes and helicopters, including the Gazelle squadron. During his time in Sandhurst, he also met and became good friends with fellow officer cadet Abdullah of Pahang, who would later become the 16th Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) of Malaysia.
In the 1980s, as a young military officer, he enjoyed vacationing in Tanzania.
He has held a number of roles in the UAE military, from that of an officer in the Amiri Guard (now called Presidential Guard) to a pilot in the UAE Air Force.
Political career Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi
In November 2003, Sheikh Zayed appointed his son Mohamed as deputy crown prince of Abu Dhabi. Upon the death of his father, Mohamed became crown prince of Abu Dhabi in November 2004 and was appointed deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces in January 2005. Later that month, he was promoted to the rank of general. Since December 2004 he has also been the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, which is responsible for the development and planning of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and is a member of the Supreme Petroleum Council. He also served as a special adviser to his older half-brother, Khalifa bin Zayed, president of the UAE at the time.
As a result of Sheikh Khalifa's ill health, Mohamed became the de facto ruler of Abu Dhabi in January 2014 and was responsible for welcoming foreign dignitaries in the capital district of the United Arab Emirates in the city of Abu Dhabi. On 13 May 2022, he became the ruler of Abu Dhabi, following the death of his brother Khalifa. On 14 May 2022, he was elected as president of the United Arab Emirates.
Foreign policy
In 2018, Mohamed travelled to Ethiopia to meet Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, ahead of the first installment of a $3 billion donation from the UAE to Ethiopia, intended to tide over its foreign exchange shortage. Under Mohamed's encouragement and initiative, the UAE raised funds to provide aid to Somalia during periods of drought.
Mohamed is a supporter of Yemen's internationally recognized government, after the Yemen civil war, and supported the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen to drive out Irani-backed Houthi militants after the Houthi takeover in Yemen. During Mohamed's visit to France in 2018, a group of rights activists filed a lawsuit against the crown prince, accusing him of being a "war criminal" who was "complicit in the torture and inhumane treatment in Yemen". The complaint filed on behalf of the French rights group AIDL said: "It is in this capacity that he has ordered bombings on Yemeni territory."
Mohamed's foreign policy was characterized by supporting secessionist movements and fueling fragmentation across various countries in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. A result of his opposition to the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, this approach assists the UAE's plans to avoid external threat, silence dissent, exercise influence and secure its interests. MbZ has actively encouraged factions that undermine central governments, including Khalifa Haftar in Libya, the Southern Movement in Yemen, and Hemedti in Sudan, rather than backing the unified states.
United States Mohamed regards the United States as his chief ally and has a strong relationship with United States government officials including former US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and former US national security advisor and counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke. As unpaid advisers, Mohamed consults them and follows their advice on combating terrorism and enhancing the UAE's military strength and intelligence. Mohamed had an initially good relationship with the Obama administration but the relationship deteriorated when Barack Obama did not consult with or inform the UAE about its Iran nuclear deal. A further breakdown in relations was caused over their different positions on the Syrian civil war. According to an Emirati senior adviser, "His Highness felt that the UAE had made sacrifices and then been excluded." However, Mohamed continued talking to Obama regularly and offered him advice. Mohamed warned Obama that his proposed remedy for Syria — the Free Syrian Army rebels who were allied to Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood — would be worse than the regime of Bashar al-Assad. He also urged Obama to talk to the Russians about working together on Syria, and supported the Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war. The relationship deteriorated further when Obama made dismissive comments in a 2016 interview in The Atlantic, describing the gulf's rulers as "free riders" who "do not have the ability to put out the flames on their own". After the election of Donald Trump, Mohamed flew to New York to meet the president-elect's team and canceled a parting lunch with Obama.
Mohamed shared similar ideas with President Trump regarding Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, as Trump has sought to move strongly against both. When Mohamed was a child, his father Sheikh Zayed unknowingly assigned a respected Muslim Brotherhood member, Ezzedine Ibrahim, as Mohamed's tutor. His tutor attempted an indoctrination that backfired. "I am an Arab, I am a Muslim and I pray. And in the 1970s and early 1980s I was one of them," Mohamed told visiting American diplomats in 2007 to explain his distrust of the Muslim Brotherhood, as they reported in a classified cable released by WikiLeaks. He stated, "I strongly believe these guys have an agenda." Trump also shared Mohamed's views on Qatar, Libya and Saudi Arabia, even over the advice of cabinet officials and senior national security staff. In August 2020, Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohamed jointly announced the establishment of formal Israeli–Emirati relations.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Al Nahyan refused to take phone calls with US President Joe Biden (at a time when Biden was asking for greater oil production from Saudi Arabia and the UAE) due to his criticism of Biden's policy in the Gulf.
In September 2024, Mohamed bin Zayed visited the United States, the first ever visit of an Emirati President to the White House. Mohamed met President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris separately, discussing future bilateral economic and technological relations. Ahead of Mohamed's visit to Washington, certain US lawmakers also sent a letter to Biden, asking him to discuss with Mohamed the ongoing crisis in Sudan, and stating that the UAE's backing of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan could hinder Biden's efforts to end the conflict.
United Kingdom In 2024, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Sheikh Mohamed significantly deepened bilateral relations through direct meetings and high-level diplomatic engagement. In December 2024, Starmer conducted a high-profile visit to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to accelerate negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council.
In late 2025, Starmer's government faced intensifying parliamentary and public pressure to suspend arms sales to the UAE following reports that British-made military equipment was being diverted to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan.
Egypt On 22 March 2022, Sheikh Mohamed met with Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Egypt. They discussed trilateral relations, Russo-Ukrainian War and the Iran nuclear deal.
Russia