[bgwalter]

They are dumping some of the risk on Saudi Arabia now. During the MBS, Musk, Huang, Trump meeting MBS had to upgrade his previous $600 billion shakedown to $1 trillion, all of which goes to oligarchs in "AI", defense etc.

As a result, for example xAI now builds a fossil fuel powered data center with a Saudi state-backed firm named Humain.

It will probably end up like the Twitter investment of the Saudis.

[biff1]

Do the Saudi’s have a trillion to actually invest. It feels like Zalensky’s commitment to Macron, or various other commitments I keep hearing about. All very “check’s in the mail” vibes.

[bgwalter]

Good question. An NYT article that just came out says no:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/business/pif-saudi-arabia...

According to the article, the sovereign wealth fund PIF has many poor/toy investments and is in need of bailouts itself.

The squandering of investment money globally is unprecedented. They could literally just build (not buy!) $200 billion in affordable housing in Berlin or London and rake in 6% annually, with zero risk. Instead they build failing luxury resorts with non-functioning robot servants.

[tim333]

It's been rather extraordinary. The Patrick Boyle vid on Neom done about a year ago was entertaining (https://youtu.be/Ak4on5uTaTg). As might be expected that's all ground to a halt now.