Saudi crown prince seeks to burnish image with Corporate America’s top executives

WASHINGTON: Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will rub shoulders with many of Corporate America’s most powerful executives on Wednesday, a day after President Donald Trump reintroduced him to official Washington with a glowing endorsement from the White House.

The CEOs from Chevron, Qualcomm, Cisco, General Dynamics and Pfizer will attend the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center in Washington, according to the event’s program, as well as senior executives from IBM, Alphabet’s Google, Salesforce, Andreessen Horowitz, Boeing, Halliburton, Adobe, Aramco, State Street and Parsons Corp.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will take part in a discussion on advances in AI at the forum.

Bin Salman arrived in Washington ready to talk about Trump’s favorite topic, investments in the U.S. Sitting next to Trump in the White House, bin Salman promised to increase his country’s U.S. investment to $1 trillion from a $600 billion pledge he made when Trump visited Saudi Arabia in May. But he offered no details or timetable.

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A $1 trillion investment in the U.S. would be difficult for Saudi Arabia to pull together given its heavy spending on an already-ambitious series of massive projects at home, including futuristic megacities that have gone over budget and faced delays and stadiums for the 2034 World Cup.

Trump will attend the investment forum event that will include a wide range of companies, many of which are expected to announce investments in Saudi Arabia.

The president himself could benefit from closer business ties with Saudi Arabia. He and several of his confidants have forged business deals with Saudi partners in real estate and other investments.

But on Tuesday, Trump sought to distance himself from any suggestion of a conflict of interest. “I have nothing to do with the family business,” he told reporters, adding that “They’ve done very little with Saudi Arabia actually.”

In May, during Trump’s four-day Middle East trip, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia announced billions of dollars in investments in both countries that included defense and AI deals.