Visions of Mustaqbālna
On Saudi Arabia's various fever dreams and their role in our long national nightmare
An excellent piece from Jacob Silverman in the October 2025 issue of The Nation titled "Elon Musk's AI Grift" recently came out and it does a great job surveying Musk's business empire, the state of the AI sector, and his attempts to create a financial ecosystem insulated from pressures that might undermine his various projects. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf have become increasingly central to this endeavor.
Now, as Silverman lays out, it is a bit funny that Saudi Arabia has invested in both xAI (a $800 million stake) and x/Twitter (a $1.9 billion stake) considering this is a country which maintained spy rings inside Twitter for years. Nonetheless, if the world can look past Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arranging the grisly murder and dismemberment of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, then what’s a little espionage aimed at critics between friends:
“The merger of X and xAI helped muddy, if not obscure, X’s checkered investment history—and its troubling role as a tool of state surveillance. The blob of capital and hype that makes up the Muskonomy has helped to further insulate the platform from anything resembling public accountability. The two companies already shared personnel and investors; now they are more enmeshed than ever. The deal intensified the laundering of responsibility for the Saudi spy ring, the most prominent instance of Silicon Valley’s widespread—and growing—vulnerability to espionage.
One simple reason that Saudi Arabia’s outsize and troubling role in the tech world hasn’t drawn wider attention is that money is a moral lubricant. Some tech billionaires appear to consider the infiltration of their companies by foreign dictatorships simply a cost of doing business. And some seem to share their authoritarian instincts.”
The reforms that the Kingdom have undertaken have not been, to the chagrin of the Kingdom’s various cheerleaders, interested in doing anything about the long-obvious fact that MBS would be a brutal autocrat. In fact, it seems Silicon Valley has actually been catching up to Washington’s position here: understanding that everything and anything is permitted so long as there is a transaction. Still, the coziness between Saudi Arabia and the Silicon Valley is integral to any attempt at describing what has become of global technological development, especially in the sectors involved with what we call artificial intelligence.
I want to use this as a chance to revisit an essay I abandoned last year on Saudi Arabia’s role in our tech bubble and its attempts to ingratiate itself in the coming global order. I’ve been working on a related essay linking Saudi Arabia to the Silicon Valley Consensus framework, so I figured this was relevant since it’ll be built on iteratively and because the core thesis still stands: Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 investments are less about economic diversification than about consolidating authoritarian control and securing geopolitical importance resembling what the Kingdom enjoy thanks to oil. Increasingly, that means being enmeshed with speculators, crypto, real estate tycoons, and Big Tech firms (more on that coalition next time).
One way to look at the Gulf’s role is that the region’s various schemes to pursue megaprojects and generate revenues independent of fossil fuels are, in part, stillborn attempts to preserve the geopolitical import these states have enjoyed for decades thanks to oil. This ambition has found a natural partner in Silicon Valley’s own dreams of usurping and consolidating control over America’s political and economic order. Over in Palo Alto, techno-nationalists eagerly chase exterminist futures by day before turning in for the night and dreaming of a world where a trillion network states bloom, each sitting somewhere on a spectrum between Little St. James and Prospera.
As the United States deepens its Cold War with China, as BRICS asserts itself globally, as Europe dithers between Washington and Beijing, the Kingdom has not going hesitated to negotiate the best deal with whoever it can. It seeks to secure stakes in various startups, partner with governments to build multi-gigawatt data centers, invest Smaugian hoards of capital into venture capital funds, work with more traditional Wall Street financiers, and increasingly cooperate with Chinese firms, all to attract the talent, tech, and capital necessary to pursue its own interests.
The way Saudi Arabia’s investments into tech are typically understood, however, are through the lens of Vision 2030—the Kingdom’s diversification strategy aimed at transforming a state whose economy, civil society, social programs, and political stability are all contingent on extract, processing, and selling petroleum (by)products. Nevermind that the Kingdom’s Vision wasn’t even the first (America’s concrete industry released one in 2001, Kenya’s came from a “development process” across 2006-2008, Pakistan’s was published in 2007, Abu Dhabi’s in 2008, the World Health Organization’s in 2010, South Africa’s in 2011, the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce’s in 2012, and so on). The fingerprints of management consultants are unmistakable; outside of the Kingdom, few clients have made it painfully obvious—the Saudi Vision came almost immediately after a McKinsey & Company published a few months before the diversification strategy was announced.
In 2015, after the Kingdom’s first deficit since 2007 (an eye-watering $98 billion) thanks to the 2014-15 collapse of oil prices, commentators warned that drastic reforms were necessary to save the country from an “economic time bomb”: its reliance on oil exports. Over the next decade, the record is mixed on its attempts to bolster alternative sources of revenues while restructuring the economy, with some tech investments promising to bolster the country’s green tech stack while others are certain to overexpose Saudi Arabia to tech startup overvaluation and asset bubbles related to AI infrastructure.
Vision 2030 tends to constantly shift under scrutiny because its core ambitions outstrip its capacities–even those of its key lever: the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF). PIF is simultaneously expected to be: an investment vehicle funding grand projects aimed at minimizing Kingdom’s reliance on oil; a power play by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to personally consolidate power; a channel to translate overseas investment into economic diplomacy; an opportunity to divorce geo-strategic importance from oil.
Whether the Vision fails or not is up in the air, though it may not come soon enough to stop the Kingdom from coughing up trillions of dollars worldwide into technological developments that suit its aims: surveillance and force projection, sci-fi moonshot projects, extractive and dispossessive digital technologies—in other words, the same suite of goods and services our own financiers and techno-capitalists eagerly await.
On December 1 2015, the McKinsey Global Institute released its report envisioning "productivity-led economic transformation" by 2030—but only if Saudi Arabia privatized swaths of the economy, curtailed subsidies, and invested in developing revenue streams independent of oil.
Weeks later, the Saudi Finance Ministry announced a 2016 budget nearly identical to McKinsey's, aimed at: "privatizing a range of sectors and economic activities," as well as "investing in development projects and programs that serve the citizens directly" and enacting a “revision of energy, water, and electricity prices." In January 2016, MBS used his first on-the-record interview to hint at more to come: sin and consumption taxes, as well as the transformation of "unutilised assets" such as state-owned land in Mecca and Medina, uranium reserves, religious and cultural tourism, along with fundraising via IPOs of state-owned companies like Aramco. When “Saudi Vision 2030” was announced months later in April, there were few surprises in this respect.
Privatization of key state-owned sectors (e.g. healthcare, air travel) would prove to be a central pillar of MBS’s neoliberal vision. One bright example: Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s largest arms importers, in 2016 importing about 98 percent of its military arms. Vision 2030 painted a rosy picture of an “indigenous” arms industry that manufactured 50 percent of Saudi weapons. The goal here was to scale up industries that could soak up employees laid off once public sector payrolls were slashed, while also providing jobs to the youth (70 percent of the population was under 30, with unemployment rate estimates ranging from 12 to 29 percent). To further bolster labor markets, employers would be encouraged to tap into a "great asset" known as “women” by hiring them in greater droves.
Other assets, specifically Aramco shares, would be transferred to PIF in pursuit of an outrageous goal: growing one of the world’s ten largest sovereign wealth funds ($152 billion worth of assets in 2015) into a $2 trillion investment juggernaut able to aid privatization while jumpstarting a domestic electric vehicle industry, expanding its petrochemical sector, and slew of other developmental infrastructure projects.
There would also need to be a massive expansion of non-oil revenue. The Ministry of Finance claimed it would increase non-oil revenue from $43 billion to $266 billion. For the Kingdom, this requires—on top of the fundamental overhauls listed above—massive levels of foreign direct investment (an estimated $100 billion) to build its desired private sector and generate private consumption. There would also need to be new taxes on top of the already proposed sin and consumption taxes, such as a tax targeting luxury goods and undeveloped urban land. Expenditures would, of course, be drawn back—specifically water and electricity subsidies which both the Kingdom and IMF claimed largely benefited elites. In the face of price hikes, middle and lower classes would be offered cash transfers to soften the blow.
Vision 2030 also called for megaprojects (now “gigaprojects” by the more sycophantic commentators) to help attract 100 million visitors. $1.5 trillion worth of construction for NEOM, including an artificial moon and a linear city called The Line. $63 billion for Diriyah Gate, a cultural capital at the ancestral seat of the Saud dynasty promising to attract 27 million annual visitors by 2030. Qiddiya, envisioned as a sports and entertainment capital, had a budget of $50 billion at one point. $20 billion for the Red Sea Project, $23 billion for King Salman Park, $50 billion for a new city district centered around consumerist Ka’ab known as Murabba (“The Cube”).
On top of all this, Vision 2030 calls for political and cultural reforms aimed at making direct investment and tourism more attractive, partly measured by reaching 100 million tourists a year by 2030 (a goal it reached this year). To call Saudi Arabia ultraconservative would be an understatement. An absolutist monarchy with the civil rights of a US prison, the state’s legitimacy stems from the first Saudi state’s pact between the founder of the Saudi dynasty and the Wahhabi Islam movement. Non-adherents are regularly discriminated against across Saudi society. Attempts to replace Wahhabi Islam with “moderate Islam”, however, have given way to political repression by another name. Political dissidents are detained, publicly executed, or assassinated from afar. Political rivals to MBS have also been detained, purged, and had their assets seized. The Kingdom's nearly 11 million foreign workers (not including undocumented workers)—the majority of the private sector workforce—are forced into virtual slavery as they are "used, abused and deported" without pay to build MBS’s dream.
In the face of these impossible demands, has the Saudi Thatcherite Revolution finally arrived? Will MBS make the desert bloom?
Since 2016, it’s been clear that a $2 trillion PIF required significantly higher crude oil prices or selling larger stakes in Aramco. The IMF estimated $96 per barrel was necessary for Vision 2030, a level breached only once this past decade: in 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions. Non-oil revenues have grown to 38 percent of Saudi Arabia’s revenues thanks to consumption taxes, but the sector’s growth is slowing to a crawl. Oil’s contribution shrunk too, but largely because of OPEC-led attempts to shore up oil prices with production cuts.
Aramco has been a similar disappointment. Originally envisioned in 2016 as a partial IPO offering 5% and raising $100 billion at a $2 trillion valuation, in 2019 MBS offered 1.5% to raise $26 billion at a $1.7 trillion valuation—another $4 billion was raised with a greenshoe option, where additional shares were sold to investors. It took MBS another five years to set up a secondary sale this June, offering 0.64% stake to raise $11.2 billion—followed by $1 billion more thanks to another greenshoe option.
The privatization program is a bit more mixed. One key plank tried and failed to raise $10 billion by 2020 through sales of state-owned assets such as grain silos and water desalination plants. Another key pillar requires annually attracting $100 billion in foreign direct investment, calling for “shock therapy to catalyse investment”. This quest for FDI has been a resounding failure, the Kingdom on track to only attract $19 billion this year. Its core ambition—to grow the Saudi economy to $1.7 trillion by 2030, with the private sector contributing 65 percent—is right on schedule or never happening, depending on who you ask.
The private sector currently contributes 45 percent (up from 40 percent in 2016), but the IMF has slashed growth projections after seeing the Saudi economy contract for consecutive quarters. And while the number of private sector employees has grown, less than 20 percent are Saudi nationals. The Kingdom introduced reforms to the abusive "kafala" or visa sponsorship program in 2021, but little has changed. Sponsors ("kafaleels") have complete control over working conditions, legal status, pay frequency, mobility, privacy, and regularly subject migrant laborers to discrimination, abuse, and violence.
Things look even worse when you review Saudi Arabia’s litany of so-called “gigaprojects” that have been stalled or downsized as aforementioned Vision 2030 shortfalls have forced the Kingdom to borrow funds. NEOM, the most famous and most expensive ($1.5 trillion) earns the biggest cuts as it has the most projects under it such as the Red Sea Project and The Line. The latter was promised to house 1.5 million people in a linear city stretching 170 kilometers, but is now slated to house less than 300,000 along a 2.4 kilometer line. NEOM features at least ten proposed projects including, but not limited to: the Oxagon (a net-zero floating industrial complex), Trojena (outdoor ski resort), Sindalah (luxury island resort), Leyja (more luxury resorts), Epicon (even more luxury resorts), Siranna (repeat after me: more luxury resorts), Utamo (luxury art), Norlana (luxury "lifestyle"), Aquellum (luxury "experiential"), Zardun (yet another luxury resort). Sadly, all their futures are now in doubt as the Kingdom reviews the sustainability of blowing hundreds of billions of dollars on projects that may not be feasible.
There is still the matter of cultural reform: MBS’s eagerness to moderate the influence of Wahabi Islam and forge a new national myth may successfully disempower religious elites, but also have (un)intended consequences elsewhere. Take the Vision 2030's aim to grow Hajj pilgrim numbers to 6 million (1.8 million in 2023) and year-round Umrah pilgrimage to 30 million (13.5 million in 2023). In the name of modernizing religious tourism, the Kingdom has sought to digitize both—but this process has just accelerated an already explosive increase in costs while supercharging profits. Saudi Arabia’s ever constant pressure to further commercialize the pilgrimages have not only helped make them even more unaffordable, but attracted investors who see an opportunity to profit by inserting themselves into the price-gouging chain.
Despite the fact that virtually every aspect of Vision 2030 has been either downsized, scrapped, delayed, disappointing, desperately pushed through, revealed to be unfeasible, or obscuring steep costs, MBS will continue undeterred. Why?
Whatever Thomas Friedman might tell you, MBS is not the first Saudi to talk of reforms to revamp the Kingdom’s economy and society. Since 1970, Saudi Arabia has issued 10 five-year development plans that sought to diversify the economy, all of which were unsuccessful and still left oil revenues accounting for 90 percent of the monarchy’s budget in 2015. Saudi Arabia's "megaprojects" also harken back to a 2000s wave of planning high-tech futuristic cities featuring still-unfinished cities from the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia.
In 2003, King Abdullah pitched the world (and investors) six new "economic cities" that were hailed as “nothing short than an overhaul of Saudi society.” After the Great Recession, six became four and eventually four became one (King Abdullah Economic City). Vision 2030 has breathed new life into the failed megaprojects, which once promised to house 4.5 million people but will now simply be special economic zones. King Abdullah Economic City, however, will be given another chance: less than 10,000 people currently live there, but Vision 2030 imagines it can house 2 million people with an investment of $100 billion.
Diversification strategies haven’t fared much better across the Gulf. The United Arab Emirates launched its Vision 2021 in 2014, but has problems that rhyme with Saudi Arabia’s: an obsession with megaprojects, pursuits of transient industries like tourism, an overreliance on exploiting and abusing foreign workers, and "unfulfilled aspirations for high-tech industries."
In 2017, Kuwait’s then-emir announced Vision 2035, a bold vision to make a "New Kuwait" that would be a "financial, cultural and institutional leader in the region by 2035." Skepticism was widespread and warranted: Kuwait had been here before. Diversification strategies contingent on trendy technology, fickle industries, and vanity megaprojects and megacities were proposed before and have been proposed again. Progress has remained stunted at best, with commentators wondering if Kuwait will ever kick start its promised reform agenda. It does not matter whether you jump to Oman’s Vision 2040, Bahrain’s Vision 2030, or Qatar’s National Vision 2030, you will find the similar problems, weaknesses, oversights, structural limitations to reforms, and histories of failed diversification schemes as we find with Saudi Arabia
What distinguishes Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is ultimately the size or ambition of Vision 2030, but the alternative ways it will be deployed: power and influence at home and abroad. Shortly after Vision 2030 was announced, King Salman abolished the dozen Supreme Councils managing various strategic sectors and installed the Council of Economic and Development Affairs—it would be placed under MBS's control and now responsible for the Kingdom's diversification strategy. Salman would not only reorganize his ministry and fill key positions with MBS loyalists, but promote MBS to Crown Prince (heir) while shifting succession law towards primogeniture that affirmed MBS's position. When MBS undertook the mass arrests of other royals at Riyadh's Ritz Carlton, he detained wealthy entrepreneurs as well as political rivals with strong bases independent of his patronage—the political purge was spun as an anti-corruption crackdown. After years of political purges and cabinet reshuffling, he would be left with wide-ranging powers as Crown Prince and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense and Chief of the Royal Court and chairman of CEDA and PIF. (He would become Prime Minister in 2022, giving the Minister of Defense role to his younger brother).
Not one to let reality interfere with analysis, the Atlantic Council gleefully anticipated in 2018 "arresting high-profile Saudi royals involved in financial dealings, commercial ventures, and security" under the guise of a corruption crackdown would send “a signal to the international financial community" that the Kingdom is ready for investors. Sure. Later that year, MBS had journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered and dismembered in Turkey—this another signal of sorts to investors. Weeks later, they would climb over one another weeks later to attend an investment summit hosted in Riyadh (affectionately called “Davos in the Desert”).
It took relatively little to rehabilitate the minor PR bruises Saudi Arabia and MBS suffered for assassinating a journalist who resided in the United States—MBS understands there are much more important things (like profit and geopolitics) at stake after all. America’s cold war with China, largely an economic war aimed at undermining the latter’s technological development, has only deepened Saudi Arabia’s entanglement with Washington, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street.
The centralization of MBS’s power has given him singular control over state-owned assets, royal authority, civilian ministries, and thus allowed the Kingdom, Vision 2030, or PIF—now managing close to $1 trillion in assets—to further diplomatic ties, geostrategy, or political objectives. Closer ties with President Trump can be pursued by giving his son-in-law billions despite internal concerns. The American-Chinese Cold War can be used to bolster the Kingdom’s own position, securing more advantageous investment or arms deals by playing one against the other. And more capital can be generated for local projects, much to the chagrin of foreign financiers, by deploying petrodollars at home or regionally, potentially enticing foreign investment that’s been slow to come.
So is Vision 2030 going to succeed? That depends on the question. If you mean: can Saudi Arabia smoothly transition to a post-oil economy, I lean towards no. If you mean: can MBS centralize the Saudi Kingdom around himself even more so than predecessors, the answer is clearly yes. If you mean: can MBS consolidate the Kingdom around himself to pursue ambitious visions at home and abroad that simultaneously restructure the economy, civil society, political system, and international order in ways that advance his interests, the answer remains to be seen.
Clear and enlightening. Thank you for it.