The Making of Saudi Inc.
How MBS has presided over the sovereign wealth fund’s oil-powered takeover.
Mohammed bin Salman during the opening ceremony of the Saudi Green Initiative forum in Riyadh in 2021.
Photographer: Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty ImagesA few years from now, an American executive flying into Saudi Arabia could disembark from an airline founded by its sovereign wealth fund and order an Uber, a company in which the same fund owns a 4% stake. Whisked across the capital, the executive might check into a boutique hotel in a former palace, also owned by the Public Investment Fund.
Attending the PIF’s annual conference, they could sip coffee farmed through a venture led by the fund, then sign a deal with a PIF-owned defense firm. That evening, the executive might catch dinner and a movie at a complex developed by its entertainment arm, flying home without touching a single business not linked to the PIF.