Why did foreign companies help Joseph Mobutu take power of Congo in 1965?

Answer 1

"The US played a major role in converting the newly independent Congo into a Cold War battleground. The US administration in the 1960s authorised the murder of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who had been voted into office just months earlier in the territory's first-ever democratic election. Washington, who was instrumental in helping Mobutu Seso Seko to power and kept him there for more than 30 years, bears heavy responsibility for the disastrous economic conditions, massive corruption, and suppression of human rights in the Congo." This is an exert from the bookIn the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in the Congo. The book goes on to state that the USA and others believed Motubu to be the "last line of defense" against the soviets, whom they feared would take power in the Congo. Foreign companies, which is what your question revolved around, funded Motubu along with the CIA because the previous leader, Lumumba, was a total communist who wanted to throw them all out. Incidentally, Lumumba was cheered on by the west as someone who would end the chaotic riots and militancy in the Congo and unite the country, but then he showed his true political alignment so ultimately they paid the Congolese to give him the royal boot.