Pick Up Stix founder Charlie Zhang pays respects to presidential ‘benefactor’

Charlie Zhang, who arrived in the United States from Shanghai in 1980, founded the fastfood restaurant chain Pick Up Stix. He made his first fortune when he sold that business in 2001.

“I came to America with $20 and they gave me $50 million!” he previously told the Business Journal.

Zhang, who is now on the board of directors at the Richard Nixon Foundation, recently donated $500,000 to refurbish the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum’s replica of the White House East Room.

“No Nixon, no Charlie here,” Zhang recently told our Peter J. Brennan, whose front-page feature notes the large number of Chinese visitors that make their way to the Yorba Linda library each year.

“In 1972, Nixon took a lot of courage to engage China. After 1979, the two countries cemented their relationships. I was among the first batch to get a student visa,” Zhang said.

“For me, Nixon was my benefactor. If there was no Nixon, I wouldn’t have had a good life here where a great country raised me up. So, I want to give back, pay respects.”

Zhang, a prominent area philanthropist and arts patron, continues to be active in local business, with his latest role as vice chairman of the newly created Bank Irvine, which will be catering to other Chinese immigrants.

See Brennan’s second page 1 story for more on the other notable backers of that financial institution.

Add another wealthy business exec with SAP ties to the area’s luxe home community.

Trade publication The Dirt late last month was first to report on the identity of the buyers who paid $43 million for a home in Laguna Beach’s exclusive Irvine Cove community. The deal, completed at the end of last year, was the second priciest reported home sale in OC last year.

The buyers were reported to be the CEO of Santa Clara-based software firm ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW), Bill McDermott, and his wife,

Julie. The seller was former area subprime mortgage exec Bob Cole, who bought the property in 2005 for $29 million, according to reports.

Prior to ServiceNow, McDermott served as CEO at German software giant SAP (NYSE: SAP).

Hasso Plattner, the multibillionaire cofounder of SAP, has owned homes in Irvine Cove and also has property in Emerald Bay. Qualtrics co-founder Jared Smith, whose firm was bought by SAP for $8.3 billion in 2019, paid a reported $35 million for a Newport Beach home in 2019, according to reports.

There’s been sightings of a new Rivian Automotive (Nasdaq: RIVN) vehicle on the roads of its hometown.

Camouflaged prototype vehicles similar in look but smaller in size than the Irvine-based EV maker’s new R1S SUV were seen recently on the streets near the company’s HQ. They appear to be similar in design to a Jeep Wrangler and could be what auto industry trade publications say will be the Rivian R1X, expected to be its next product launch.

Motortrend magazine has suggested the R1X could begin deliveries in late 2023 or 2024.