• The sovereign wealth fund now holds a 4 percent share in Uber.
• The executive may check into a boutique hotel in a historic palace that is also held by the Public Investment Fund after being whisked across the metropolis.
• They may sign a contract with a PIF-owned defense company

In a few years, an American CEO travelling to Saudi Arabia could disembark from an aeroplane established by the country’s sovereign wealth fund, order an Uber, and pay for the ride. The sovereign wealth fund now holds a 4 percent share in Uber.

The executive may check into a boutique hotel in a historic palace that is also held by the Public Investment Fund after being whisked across the metropolis.

They may sign a contract with a PIF-owned defense company while sipping coffee grown through a project the fund is leading while attending the PIF’s annual conference.

The executive might fly home without interacting with a single company not affiliated with the PIF that evening after enjoying dinner and a movie in a complex created by its entertainment division.

The $620 billion PIF, which Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman leads, is gaining center stage as he works to diversify Saudi Arabia’s oil-dependent economy. It is displacing an illustrious corporate elite to become one of the most influential organizations in a rapidly evolving country.

The conservative Islamic state of old, which subsisted on oil profits while conservatively investing in secure US treasuries and distributing lucrative state contracts, is now in decline. Saudi Inc. is this. Furthermore, its so-called Founder is tearing up the rulebook.

The PIF has emerged as a significant global investor in just five years, purchasing US blue-chip companies like Uber and investing in electric vehicles. It has also ventured into the world of sports, purchasing Newcastle United of the English soccer league and putting $200 million into a global golf project.

MBS, as the de facto ruler is called, now has more influence on the global stage as Western leaders look to the largest oil exporter in the world to help tame rising inflation and inject petrodollars into a faltering global economy.

Midway through July, US President Joe Biden will travel to Riyadh after being compelled to reconsider his pledge to make MBS a “pariah” over the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

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However, the PIF has had the greatest impact at home, where its unique brand of state capitalism has revolutionized the economy. The PIF has already founded 54 new businesses, spanning industries like real estate and luxury cruises, with an investment goal of at least $40 billion year in Saudi Arabia.

Critics assert that it is a component of a larger consolidation of power that has seen Prince Mohammed, 36, seize control over security, domestic, and international issues while imprisoning detractors and silencing independent voices.

Saudi CEOs expressed concerns as well, at first claiming they felt outcompeted by a group that was so wealthy and well-connected that few could compete.

According to Steffen Hertog, an associate professor at the London School of Economics, “MBS does not care too much for the inherited structures of either the Saudi state or Saudi industry and intends to establish a new Saudi Arabia.”

He fully overhauled (the PIF) and used it as the primary means of implementing his diversification agenda, mostly eschewing the existing government and, more obviously, the existing private sector.

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