OREANDA-NEWS. The buyer of the mansion in the California city of Menlo Park, who offered Deutsche Bank $ 72 million for it, was Vitaly Yusufov, the son of former Russian Energy Minister Igor Yusufov, according to the Wall Street Journal. A Spanish-colonial-style mansion built in the 1950s in Menlo Park, where Facebook is headquartered, was put up for auction in 2017 when property prices in Silicon Valley rose markedly. In April 2018, Willow Project LLC, fully owned by Yusufov Jr., offered $ 72 million for him.

However, according to WSJ, there were disagreements at Deutsche Bank, as some of the bank's leaders expressed concern about the possible dissatisfaction of US regulatory authorities with the influx of "Russian money" into the country.

Igor Yusufov served as Minister of Energy of Russia in 2001-2004, in 2002-2004 he also headed the boards of directors at Rosneft and Transnefteproduct, and from 2003-2013 he was a member of the Gazprom Board of Directors. In 2011, he created the Energy Corporation, which is engaged in oil and gas production in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the Tomsk Region, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and Yakutia. In 2018, the company won the right to develop two oil and gas fields on the Yamal Peninsula.