Middle East Eye
UAE paid $6m to bury damaging report on US ambassador Otaiba
UAE paid $6m to bury damaging report on US ambassador Otaiba
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Tue, 05/19/2026 - 12:57
Terakeet, a firm linked to the Epstein Files, managed reputation of Yousef al-Otaiba, NYT reports
United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba at the Javits Centre in New York City, 3 March 2025 (Bryan Bedder/Getty Images via AFP)
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The United Arab Emirates paid a US reputation management firm more than $6m to bury a damaging report about its ambassador in Washington, the New York Times reported on Monday.
Yousef al-Otaiba, who has been the UAE’s ambassador to the US since 2008 and who is known as one of the best-connected diplomats in Washington, was concerned about a 2017 article that reported he had ties to sex workers and traffickers.
From July 2019, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act records, the UAE has employed Terakeet, a firm based in Syracuse, New York, to optimise Google searches to promote tourism in the Emirates and to manage Otaiba’s reputation.
The article in The Intercept about the “sordid double life of Washington’s most powerful ambassador”, was one of the first things that came up when users searched for Otaiba.
According to four former Terakeet employees who spoke to the NYT, an account manager from the firm relocated to Washington for more than a year to work in person with the Emirati ambassador so as not to leave a digital trail relating to the work.
Looking to shunt The Intercept’s article down the search results, the Terakeet team established a web page for Otaiba and used a sock puppet account to positively edit his Wikipedia page.
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Several profiles of the ambassador that emphasised his leadership qualities were written and supplied to institutions he had affiliations with, including Harvard’s Kennedy School, the Milken Institute and the Special Olympics, the New York Times reported.
The profiles contained links to favourable UAE-related blogs written by Terakeet employees, a tactic that had the effect of bolstering the profiles and pushing them up Google’s rankings.
Between 2020 and 2022, the UAE paid Terakeet more than $6m for its work, which continues to this day.
By 2023, the damaging story about Otaiba had sunk to page two in the Google search results. Today it sits on page five for most users.
Otaiba did not respond to the New York Times’s request for comment, other than to confirm that Terakeet has done work for the UAE.
Goldman Sachs executive in Epstein Files
Elsewhere in its investigation, the NYT focused on Kathryn Ruemmler, who worked in the Obama White House and was chief legal officer and general counsel at Goldman Sachs from 2020.
Goldman Sachs was a client of Terakeet, which then sprang into action to try and contain the fallout from Ruemmler’s presence in the Epstein Files.
Documents released over the course of months ended up revealing that Ruemmler had called the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein “sweetie” and “Uncle Jeffrey”, discussed travelling to France with him and expressed appreciation for lavish gifts he’d given her.
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She also gave Epstein legal advice and told his assistant she’d “love” to join meetings with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, a close associate of Epstein’s.
To try and manage Ruemmler’s reputation, Terakeet “resorted to the furtive, algorithm-placating digital tradecraft that has made it one of the most exclusive and expensive players in the booming world of reputation management firms”, the NYT reported.
In the end, the task proved to be insurmountable. Ruemmler resigned from her position at Goldman Sachs in February and is expected to leave the company in June.
Mac Cummings, Terakeet’s chief executive, who had referred in meetings to his close ties to Ruemmler and to playing golf with Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, told the New York Times: “Terakeet’s technology is built on a simple mandate: organizations must tell their own story,” the statement said. “If they do not, third-party bias combined with generative AI will shape it for them.”
Terakeet has also worked on campaigns for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Its corporate clients have included MetLife, JP Morgan Chase, Oracle, Target, Walmart, Disney and Bain Capital.
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