In 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sat alongside Steve Schwarzman and Masayoshi Son at the first iteration of Saudi Arabia’s annual financial summit to unveil a next-century city called Neom. The two billionaire investors were quick to heap praise on the $500 billion plan that envisioned a metropolis with more robots than humans and enough solar panels to fill out the Great Wall of China.
As the titans of global finance head to Riyadh for this year’s Future Investment Initiative summit, the kingdom is pivoting away from what would have been one of the world’s biggest construction projects. Instead, it’s preparing to pour ...