The co-founder of an angel investment company which funds early-stage blockchain and Web3 projects has sparked controversy after announcing his plans to leave the UK to move to Dubai.
Oli White, who is also a social media star with over 2.5m YouTube subscribers on his main channel, posted on X to his 1m followers to give his reasons for the move.
“I’ve lived in London for about 10 years or so and when I first moved here it was so exciting, there were so many opportunities and it was just an amazing place to be,” he said.
“But after the thing that happened where we couldn’t leave our houses (Covid-19 lockdown), things just changed.
“London has never been the same. The UK has never been the same – it’s unsafe.
“You can’t even walk down the road with your phone without fear of someone stealing it.”
White co-founded OWL Ventures in December 2020, nearly six years after launching his media production company OWL Productions and over eight years after beginning his YouTube journey in August 2012.
Since the company’s launch over four years ago, it has a portfolio of 18 clients, including New York-based software development company Botanix and San Francisco-based animation and post-production firm Wilder World.
It was his comedic YouTube content, however, that gave him the basis to start the company.
He has amassed over 700m views on the site over his channels – OliWhiteTV, OliWhiteVlogs and OliWhiteGames – and has over 7.5m followers across various social media platforms.
It hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows though for the 30-year-old.
He explained: “I’ve felt so uninspired from a work perspective but also just living my life.
“I haven’t really felt inspired to do anything, I haven’t pushed myself and I haven’t grown as a person.
“Because of that, I knew that something really big needed to change and that is moving to a different country.”
White went on to list the positives of moving to the most populous city in the UAE.
He said: “I first visited Dubai about eight years ago with my family and I was just blown away with this place.
“My auntie’s lived here for about 20 years and she’s always told me, ‘this is the place where you want to move, this is where it’s happening, this is where the world is moving.’”
“She was right. It’s sunny all year round here, it’s one of the safest cities in the world – you can leave a watch or a handbag on the side in a restaurant and no one will even look at it.
“You pay zero tax here. The opportunities are absolutely endless.”
Moving to the UAE from the UK isn’t something that White is alone in.
According to the Expat Insider’s 2023 Report, there are more than 240,000 British expats estimated to live in Dubai alone, as well as over 5,000 British companies operating in the UAE.
The country’s hotspots – Dubai and Abu Dhabi – have become a popular destination for both tourists as well as those looking for a permanent move outside of the UK.
This did not, however, prevent White from receiving backlash online for his decision.
One user wrote: “I’ll never understand British people moving to Dubai.
“A soulless, socially conservative dictatorship with no culture made up of some skyscrapers in a desert. Literally can’t think of a worse place to move.”
Domestic abuse campaigner David Challen added: “‘Content creators’ who leave the UK claiming London is ‘unsafe’ while calling Dubai a crime-free utopia only see their privilege and wealth, never the stark reality…
“Dubai isn’t some progressive paradise. It’s a place where women can be jailed for reporting rape, punished for pregnancy outside marriage, and trapped in abusive marriages with no legal recourse.
“These ‘creators’ aren’t fleeing for safety, they’re fleeing tax bills. They build their wealth in the UK, then take it somewhere else to avoid contributing to the society that enabled their success.
“There’s nothing progressive about hoarding wealth while refusing to give back, especially when the ‘utopia’ they run to is built on exploited foreign labour with no rights.”
White has not addressed any comments since uploading the video and there is little information on how he will continue to operate his many companies.
As well as his aforementioned businesses, he is also the co-founder of UNIQUE CBD and UNIQUE NOOTROPICS.
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