The Australian mining magnate cozying up to Trump

livemint.com:

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In rooms of sequins, blond hair and red MAGA hats, Gina Rinehart still manages to stand out at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago parties. On Halloween, the mining magnate was photographed at the Palm Beach, Fla., club in a wide-brimmed red hat with a “Drill, Baby, Drill" sign draped around her neck, posing with Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump.

Five nights later, Rinehart was back at Mar-a-Lago—this time in a white ball gown and Trump brooch—to watch the U.S. presidential election results and eventually celebrate her host’s victory. The next day, Australia’s richest person got a coveted sit-down with Elon Musk, a newly influential figure in Trump’s orbit—and one of just several dozen people on the planet with more money than her.

Rinehart said in a statement that they discussed issues pertinent to the U.S. and Australia: free speech and the need to cut both government waste and national debts. Rinehart’s enthusiastic embrace of Trump, and her efforts to export many of the MAGA ideals to Australia, is the latest twist in a life marked at various turns by pugnaciousness and generosity.

At home in Australia, where Rinehart primarily lives on the west coast in Perth, she is a polarizing figure. The executive chairman of closely held Hancock Prospecting is seen as an icon by many in the mining sector, particularly women. She rarely gives interviews, often has bodyguards and is known for being skeptical of outsiders.

But she’s also game for a fight. Now 70 years old, Rinehart famously tangled in court for a decade with her father’s third wife and onetime maid over his estate. Rinehart accused her stepmother of somehow being responsible for her father’s death, a claim rejected by the findings