Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to power had been marked by extravagant spending, bold cultural reforms and a devastating war in Yemen.
In 2020, Justin Scheck and I published Blood and Oil: Mohammed bin Salman’s Brutal Quest for Global Power (Hachette). This Next Chapter looks at why the last four years of the crown prince’s rule have been a marked departure from his first five, and what that means for his and Saudi Arabia’s future. The image was striking: US President Joe Biden greeting Mohammed bin Salman with a fist bump at the entrance of Jeddah’s Al Salam Royal Palace. It was July 2022 and just two years earlier, Biden had vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But with oil prices surging, he could no longer afford having MBS as an enemy.
For the Crown Prince, the diplomatic reset couldn’t have come at a better time. The war in Ukraine — which pushed up the price of oil — had given him the leverage he needed to position Saudi Arabia at the center of a rapidly shifting world order, and to present himself as both globally engaged and strategically patient. When Biden asked MBS to ease oil prices, he declined. American diplomats were shocked, but MBS needed oil revenues to keep flowing.
had been marked by extravagant spending, bold cultural reforms and a devastating war in Yemen. The cocksure young prince had shaken Saudi Arabia to its foundations. But the 2022 meeting with Biden showed that MBS, while no less ambitious, was increasingly attuned to his place on the world stage. Reforms that had once generated headlines — women driving, genders mixing in public, entertainment events — have become the new normal. New industries are taking root across the country and a brand new megacity, NEOM, is under construction. MBS has played the role of peacemaker in the Middle East and even forged a closer relationship with Turkey’s Tayyip Erdoğan, whose intelligence services leaked a detailed account of the Khashoggi murder.
This older, evolved MBS may be further emboldened by the looming change in Washington. During Donald Trump’s first term, the crown prince maintained close ties to the White House. With Trump’s return, MBS’s standing in the international arena will surely be solidified. His cultivation of Trump and his inner circle, once seen as a risky bet on an unconventional president, has proven prescient.
To understand how MBS has developed his style of leadership, it’s worth considering both the aftermath of Khashoggi’s murder as well as the social and economic changes MBS is bringing to Saudi Arabia through his 2030 Vision.
