[5] Mohamed is the third son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the first president of the UAE and the 16th ruler of Abu Dhabi.

[8] In 2014, Sheikh Khalifa suffered a stroke and Mohamed became the de facto president of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi.

[23] In September 2020, the UAE, alongside Bahrain, and later Morocco and Sudan, signed the Abraham Accords, an agreement to normalize diplomatic relationship with the State of Israel, a deal which was brokered by Trump.

In his youth, his father put Izzedine Ibrahim, a respected Egyptian Islamic scholar with connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, charge of his education.

[40] In the 1980s as a young military officer, he enjoyed vacationing in Tanzania, where he met the Masai people and saw their customs and the extent of poverty in the country.

[41][42] 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.

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.

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.

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.

"[56] Trump also shared Mohamed's views on Qatar, Libya and Saudi Arabia, even over the advice of cabinet officials and senior national security staff.

[57] In August 2020, Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohamed jointly announced the establishment of formal Israeli–Emirati relations.

[66] Mohamed's strong relationship with both Russia and the United States, as well as the influence he wields across both countries, has led The New York Times to label him as the Arab World's "most powerful ruler".

[68] In June 2023, Sheikh Mohamed met Putin at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), and said the Emirates wished to strengthen ties with Russia.

Several major US and European politicians and investors used to attend the forum before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the Western nations remained absent from the event in 2023.

[73] Relations started to improve between the two regional rivals – the United Arab Emirates and Turkey – following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and the withdrawal of the US troops.

In 2022 and 2023, the Emirates also pledged investments worth $97bn across ports, renewable energy, mining, agriculture, real estate, communications and manufacturing in Africa.

[75][76][77] African leaders increasingly welcomed investments from the UAE, which offered a financial boost to Africa’s green energy sector.

They raised concerns around the UAE’s rights records, treatment of migrant workers, support for hydrocarbons, and its failure to address environmental issues.

As part of this visit, Pope Francis held the first Papal Mass to be celebrated in the Arabian Peninsula at Zayed Sports City in which 180,000 worshippers from 100 countries, including 4,000 Muslims, were present.

[96][94] Political scientist Christopher Davidson has characterized Mohamed's tenure as de facto UAE leader as entailing "a marked and rapid intensification of autocratic-authoritarianism.

[10] Krieg writes:[10] "MbZ envisaged the creation of a new Middle Eastern state... Statecraft would be the prerogative of the autocratic, centralized ruler whose transactional relationship with his subordinates was supposed to be governed by both means of accommodation and repression.

[97][98][99][100] According to The Intercept and referencing the hacked emails of Yousef Al Otiaba, an American citizen Khaled Hassen received a $10 million in 2013 for an alleged torture settlement after a lawsuit presented in the federal court in Los Angeles against three senior Abu Dhabi royals, including Mohamed bin Zayed.

He invited Maj. Gen. Mike Hindmarsh, the retired former head of Australia's Special Operations Command, to help reorganize the Emirati military.

According to the New York Times, as a result of Mohamed's vision, the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces became the best equipped and trained military in the region apart from Israel.

[107] On 17 July 2020, a French investigating magistrate was appointed to carry out the probe targeting Mohamed bin Zayed for "complicity in the of torture" citing the UAE's involvement in the Yemen civil war.

In July 2021, Barrack was arrested by the American authorities for allegedly failing to register as a foreign lobbyist for the UAE, obstructing justice and lying to investigators.

Drawing attention to the repressive dictatorship practiced in the Emirates, they urged Macron to raise the issue of severe human rights violations in the UAE with Mohamed during the meeting.

He donated US$1 million to an initiative aimed at preventing the power line-related deaths of wild birds, as part of launching of the 20-million-dollar Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Raptor Conservation Foundation.

[137][138] In 2017, Acer binzayedii, a rare species of maple tree found in the mountainous cloud forest of Jalisco in Western Mexico, was named after him.