As White House Waffles on Saudi Response, Businesses Step Up
*By Carlo Versano*
While the Trump administration has appeared cautious in its response to the alleged abduction and murder of Washington Post journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, business leaders are taking a tougher stance against the kingdom ー which may have long-term ramifications for the relationship between corporate America and Saudi investments.
Nearly a dozen companies have said they would no longer participate in an upcoming high-profile business conference in Saudi Arabia. Executives from Uber, Viacom ($VIAB), Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, the New York Times ($NYT), and others have pulled out of the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, also known as "Davos in the desert."
Some went further: business magnate Richard Branson, who had been negotiating with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about an investment in Branson's Virgin Galactic spaceflight operation, dropped out of those talks completely.
Allegations that Saudi Arabia was responsible for detaining, torturing, and dismembering Khashoggi at its consulate in Istanbul, "if proved true, would clearly change the ability of any of us in the West to do business with the Saudi government," Branson said.
Jeanne Whalen, a business reporter at the Washington Post, where Khashoggi worked as a global opinions contributor, said the very same industry leaders that the crown prince has been working so hard to court ー giants in tech, entertainment, and media ー are now at the forefront of a pushback against the Saudi regime.
"It's been quite important to \[bin Salman\] to develop more of those sectors inside of Saudi Arabia to try and prepare for a future when oil is possibly no longer the centerpiece of the global economy," Whalen told Cheddar.
In fact, it was just this past spring that bin Salman made high-profile swings through Silicon Valley and Hollywood, where he met with A-list actors, media moguls, and tech CEOs like Facebook's ($FB) Mark Zuckerberg. The move was widely hailed as a softening of the royal family's image and a signal of a new interest in doing deals with the U.S.
Now, those carefully cultivated relationships appear to be in tatters.
Meanwhile in Washington, the response to the mounting diplomatic crisis has been somewhat muted.
"The Trump administration at the moment has not been particularly publicly critical of the Saudis," Whalen said.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he still plans to attend the Riyadh conference, while the president remarked that, while he was concerned, he would "not be in favor of stopping a country from spending $110 billion," a reference to the price of a recent arms sale the U.S. made to the kingdom.
Trump made a point to note that Khashoggi was "not a United States citizen."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/business-leaders-distance-themselves-from-saudi-government-over-missing-journalist).
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