For more than a quarter-century, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has been making investments and building relationships in the West. He bailed out Citigroup Inc., helped refinance the ill-fated Euro Disney and backed Rupert Murdoch during the U.K. phone-hacking scandal.
Now, as Alwaleed passes a fourth week at a Riyadh hotel, one of hundreds of detainees in an anti-corruption crackdown, almost no one has rallied to his cause.
Bill Gates, the Microsoft Inc. co-founder and philanthropist, said in a statement Monday that Alwaleed, 62, has been an “important partner” in their charitable work together. Earlier this month, Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat called him a “consistent, loyal supporter.” They don’t have much company.
For Alwaleed, the relative silence is a skimpy return on the billions he’s invested over the years in everything from Twitter Inc. to Europe’s biggest hotel operator, Accor SA. Yet his situation reflects a harsh reality: As much as his friends and business associates may want to support him publicly, they’re wary of being perceived as critics of the crackdown and the man behind it, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The son of King Salman, Prince Mohammed is trying to modernize the Saudi economy in part by weaning the country off its decades-long dependency on oil revenue. His anti-corruption drive threatens to end a patronage system that allowed royals and Saudi businesspeople to grow wealthy off government contracts and lucrative deals with multinational corporations.
“There is a recognition that attempting to interfere in the process in Saudi Arabia is unlikely to yield a lot of results, given that this has been driven by Mohammed bin Salman himself,” Ayham Kamel, head of Middle East & North Africa at Eurasia Group, said in a phone interview. “Any public defense of Prince Alwaleed or others would not necessarily be conducive to their interests in Saudi Arabia, or those of the individuals implicated.”
Alwaleed, with a fortune of $17.2 billion, was among dozens of princes, ministers and senior officials who were rounded up the weekend of Nov. 4. The Saudi government says it has since released a few detainees. The rest remain confined to Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton, a luxury hotel that only days earlier had played host to a conference promoting the kingdom as an attractive investment.
Keeping Quiet
Privately, many of Alwaleed’s contacts in the U.S. and Europe say they don’t believe he’s guilty of corruption and wonder if his arrest isn’t simply a shakedown. They also venture that the lack of explanation behind Prince Mohammed’s campaign against graft may backfire by alienating the same foreign capital he hopes to attract.
Yet at the same time, very few are willing to comment publicly. Some say they’re reluctant to support Alwaleed when it’s still unclear why he was detained. Others say they’re fearful of losing access to business opportunities in the kingdom.