Malaysia orders closure of Balaji Srinivasan's Network School campus

Malaysian authorities ordered the closure of a start-up campus founded by US investor Balaji Srinivasan, saying the site had breached regulations.

Onn Hafiz Ghazi, the chief minister of Johor state, said a local municipality had revoked Network School's business licence and ordered it to stop operating from Wednesday.

The Iskandar Puteri City Council said one Network School site was operating without a licence and that another was carrying out activities different from those allowed under its office-use permit.

Onn Hafiz said action had to be taken when non-compliance was found. Network School was not available for comment.

The campus had already been the subject of an immigration probe. Authorities raided it last week after unsubstantiated online claims that it was breaching immigration rules. The allegations centred on claims that Israelis with dual citizenship were being allowed to work there.

Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country, has no diplomatic ties with Israel and bars entry to Israeli passport holders. The source says Malaysia does not have specific laws about people who hold second-country passports.

Srinivasan, a former senior executive at Coinbase, said Malaysian officials had inspected hundreds of passports at his nearly $25 million development. The site is a residential campus for startup founders, software engineers, investors and digital entrepreneurs. He said authorities confirmed that all travel documents were in order.

After the raid, Srinivasan said he was freezing all projects in Malaysia until he received sufficient assurance that similar issues would not happen again.

Onn Hafiz said Johor, which borders Singapore, welcomed high-quality investments, but said no investor, company or organisation could be placed above the country's law.