Necker Island (British Virgin Islands) world, the challenge begins at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with the top 10 new innovations progressing to the finals at Necker Island where Branson joins the judging panel along with technology figures and investors from Silicon Valley. The Necker Cup, an exhibition tennis tournament held at the end of the tennis season, has been held on the island annually since 2012. In February 2017, former U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle visited Necker as guests of Sir Richard Branson. On August 22, 2011, The Great House burned down in a blaze believed to be
Jacques Necker compounding of interest on the national debt brought France to a fiscal crisis. Necker was recalled to royal service. When he was dismissed on 11 July 1789 it caused the Storming of the Bastille. Within two days Necker was recalled by the king and the assembly. Necker entered France in triumph and tried to accelerate the tax reform process. Faced with the opposition of the Constituent Assembly he resigned in September 1790 to a reaction of general indifference. Necker, apparently a constitutional monarchist, also a political economist and a moralist wrote a severe critique of the new principle of equality