There is no guarantee that the Gesher Party of MK Orly Levy-Abecassis will cross the 3.25% electoral threshold in the April 9 election, but her number two candidate, Dadi Perlmutter, is in no need of a job.
Perlmutter is on the board of directors of Mellanox, the Israeli microchip maker acquired by American technology giant Nvidia for $6.9 billion on Monday.
According to Nasdaq, Perlmutter has 17,400 shares of Mellanox. Each share was sold for $125 in cash, meaning that he had a windfall of some $2.175 million from his investment in the company. Perlmutter said he also had stock options with the company that made his revenue even more.
“All Mellanox employees have stocks in the company, so they all benefited from the acquisition,” Perlmutter said in an interview with ThelandofIsrael.com. “This is how capitalism works well, when it shares its success with everyone, including employees.”
The Yokne’am-based company, founded in 1999 and listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market, supplies end-to-end interconnect solutions and services for many of the world’s largest data center servers and storage systems. It was the third largest “exit” of an Israeli company to date, only surpassed by Intel’s $15.3b. acquisition of Mobileye and International Flavors & Fragrances’ $7.1b. acquisition of Frutarom.
Perlmutter, 64, joined Mellanox in 2014 after leaving Intel, where he started working in 1980, straight out of the Technion. He rose to be the company’s executive vice president, managing almost all Intel business at a time when it was making $50 billion in revenue a year.
He has also engaged in social activism, working on reducing the gaps between the haves and have-nots in the periphery and ensuring that more children will be given the tools to go into hi-tech in the future.
The Gesher Knesset hopeful also founded Mishelanu, a network of college students on North American campuses that develops leadership and entrepreneurial skills for Israeli-born students and children of Israeli parents. He said Mishelanu aims to connect the students to Judaism, the Jewish community and Israel.
Asked why he entered politics, Perlmutter said: “Israeli leadership needs people with experience like mine. The gaps are one of the biggest dangers to Israel’s existence and well-being as a nation.”