He was the man who sold the world on his vision of a Saudi economy no longer dependent on oil.
Now Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman could become the biggest risk to his own project. Everything changed when Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and didn’t come out. Allegations rapidly spread that the Washington-based journalist was murdered by a hit team sent from Riyadh. And suspicion naturally fell on the oil-rich kingdom’s de facto ruler, the 33-year-old heir to the throne.
Prince Mohammed, who’s denied any knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate, still has his defenders -– notably Donald Trump. The U.S. president and his top diplomat have cautioned against putting America’s decades-old Saudi alliance at risk while they await the results of a Saudi investigation. But that’s in sharp contrast to a growing chorus of outrage, putting pressure on the White House to act. In Congress, lawmakers from Trump’s own party denounced the prince personally and demanded sanctions.
And, crucially for Prince Mohammed’s economic plans, the global business leaders he courted are distancing themselves. The bosses of JPMorgan Chase & Co., Ford Motor Co. and Uber Technologies Inc. are among dozens of executives and policy makers scrapping plans to attend the prince’s business forum next week.
‘Official Complicity’
For a leader who’s staked his country’s future on a surge in foreign investment, that’s an ominous indicator.
“What appears to be Saudi official complicity in Jamal’s disappearance, and perhaps death, sends all the wrong signals to the people and groups MBS needs to change Saudi Arabia in the direction he wants,’’ said Gregory Gause, a Saudi specialist at Texas A&M University.
The investors the crown prince needs were already wavering. They were fine with showing up at lavish summits, at least until Khashoggi disappeared -– but the money wasn’t flowing.
Foreign direct investment slumped more than 80 percent last year. In an interview this month, the crown prince said early data suggested a partial rebound in 2018. But to meet his 2020 targets, FDI needs to soar.
Instead, even before the Khashoggi scandal, business leaders had seen enough in Prince Mohammed’s rule to unnerve them. At home, Saudi Arabia detained dozens of prominent local entrepreneurs as part of a supposed crackdown on graft. Abroad, it launched a boycott of Qatar, and got embroiled in disputes with Germany and Canada that threatened commercial deals with those countries.
War in Yemen
The crown prince set out to change a strict religious culture, and he delivered on some promises, allowing women to drive cars and loosening Saudi social life by permitting cinemas and concerts. Those measures won him fanfares in the West.