Network School shelves investment plans for country after Israeli controversy

 Founder Balaji Srinivasan says investments will be put on hold until 'we get sufficient assurance that such issues won’t recur'.

Network School founder Balaji Srinivasan said over RM100 million had been invested in its Forest City campus. (X pic)

PETALING JAYA:

The founder of Network School (NS), a private residential community in Johor which came under scrutiny following claims that Israeli nationals were among its participants, says they will shelve their Malaysian investment plans for now.

In a post on X, Balaji Srinivasan said NS had already invested over RM100 million in its Forest City campus and employed dozens of Malaysians, directly and indirectly, at every level from executive to staff.

NS, he claimed, “revitalised the multibillion-dollar Forest City project, causing millions of ringgit in real estate appreciation”.

Until the controversy, NS was on the cusp of a RM500 million expansion project, Srinivasan said.

“At this point, all further investments we were planning to make in Malaysia is on hold until we get sufficient assurance that such issues won’t recur.

“So are the investment plans of many of our friends, including the execs and investors at global tech firms that we brought to Forest City.”

He added that an “emerging multi-billion dollar success story” risked being derailed by a fake story spread by an anonymous account.

Srinivasan said Malaysia now had two options.

He said if the country still wanted continued global tech investments and aimed to be among the top 20 tech hubs, NS was open to discussing a memorandum of understanding with Putrajaya, similar to the one signed recently between the Solana Foundation and the Kazakhstan government.

Srinivasan said they would publicly commit to abiding by all Malaysian laws and respecting Malaysia’s sovereignty.

“Alternatively, if you don’t want our investment, or those of our colleagues at billion-dollar funds and trillion-dollar companies, we will of course respect your wishes, and reallocate our capital to other countries instead.”

Earlier today, it was reported that the immigration department had yet to find any evidence that Israeli nationals were present at the Network School in Forest City.

The department had yesterday inspected 266 foreigners from 40 countries taking part in the Network School, and all possessed valid immigration documents.

Launched in 2024, the Network School is a private residential community in Forest City founded by Srinivasan, a former Coinbase chief technology officer and investor. - FMT