You can be an investor one day and an arbitrary detainee the next
For decades, Saudi Arabia has announced grand reinventions of itself, each one promising to transcend the oil economy that built the kingdom. The latest iteration, Vision 2030, is now quietly retreating from its most spectacular ambitions — a city without cars stretching across the desert, a ski resort carved into mountain rock, a structure that dwarfed imagination itself. What is unfolding is not simply a budget correction, but a recurring human story about the distance between declared futures and the stubborn weight of reality.
- The Line, The Cube, and Trojena — the architectural fantasies that defined Vision 2030's global image — have been abandoned or gutted, taking tens of billions in planned investment with them.
- Foreign capital never arrived in the volumes the kingdom expected, and the detention of Saudi elites and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi sent a chilling signal to investors who prize legal predictability above all.
- A structural 'yes man' culture — in which consultants, foreign firms, and officials all avoid hard questions to protect their access — has allowed unrealistic visions to advance unchallenged for decades, repeating a pattern seen as far back as King Abdullah's failed Economic Cities.
- Saudi officials are now reframing the retreat as disciplined prioritization, pointing to smaller, tangible projects like AlUla and Diriyah as the true heart of the vision.
- The 2034 FIFA World Cup looms as the unavoidable test: a deadline the kingdom cannot defer, and a stage on which execution credibility will either be rebuilt or further eroded.
A decade ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman unveiled a vision so sweeping it seemed borrowed from science fiction — a hundred-mile city in the desert, a mountain ski resort, a structure large enough to swallow the Empire State Building twenty times over. Backed by a sovereign wealth fund approaching a trillion dollars, Vision 2030 was meant to remake Saudi Arabia not through oil, but in spite of it.
Four years before the deadline, the machinery has begun to seize. The Line is being scaled back into something far more ordinary. Trojena's hosting of the Asian Winter Games has been cancelled and reassigned to Kazakhstan. The Cube has been abandoned entirely, erasing an estimated fifty billion dollars in planned spending. LIV Golf, which consumed five billion dollars, is now widely regarded as an expensive failure. What was announced as a cascade of world-changing projects has become a series of deferrals.
The causes are familiar. Oil prices fell. Foreign investors never materialized in the expected numbers. But observers like Ellen Wald, author of Saudi, Inc., see something deeper — a structural pattern that has repeated for decades. King Abdullah's Economic Cities programme in the 2000s followed the same arc: bold announcement, significant spending, and quiet disappointment. The largest city built under that programme never became the hub it was designed to be.
The political dimension compounds the economic one. MBS's mass detention of Saudi elites at the Ritz-Carlton in 2017, and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, frightened away investors who prize predictability. When a person can be an investor one day and an arbitrary detainee the next, capital finds other destinations.
The social changes Vision 2030 promised have been real — women drive, entertainment has expanded, the texture of daily life in Riyadh has shifted. Young Saudis remain inspired by the ambition. But the megaprojects meant to attract matching private and foreign investment have only partly succeeded, and the pivot is now being framed as pragmatism: smaller wins, sustainable scale, a focus on places like AlUla and Diriyah rather than structures that exist only in renderings.
The kingdom is not accountable to its citizens for the billions spent on projects that may live only on the internet. The Crown Prince's popularity among young Saudis gives the leadership room to discard failed megaprojects without political consequence. Whether it gives them room to rebuild the trust of foreign investors — the partners they still need — is a different question entirely.
A decade ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced a transformation so sweeping it seemed pulled from science fiction. Vision 2030 would remake Saudi Arabia—not through the oil wealth that had built it, but through a sovereign fund of nearly a trillion dollars that would finance a future the kingdom could not yet imagine. The renderings were extraordinary: a city called The Line stretching 100 miles across the desert, taller than the Shard in London. A year-round ski resort in the mountains. A structure so massive it could contain the Empire State Building twenty times over. These were not modest plans. They were declarations of intent.
Four years before that deadline, the machinery has begun to seize. The Line is being remade into something far more ordinary. Trojena, the mountain resort that was supposed to host the Asian Winter Games in 2029, has been cancelled—the Games will be held in Kazakhstan instead. The Cube, that impossible structure, has been abandoned entirely, taking with it an estimated fifty billion dollars in planned spending. The LIV Golf tour, which has consumed five billion dollars to date, is now regarded as an expensive failure that delivered neither profit nor prestige. What was meant to be a cascade of world-changing projects has become a series of deferrals and cancellations.
The reasons are familiar enough: oil prices fell before the recent Middle East conflict, and even Saudi Arabia's extraordinary wealth took a hit. Foreign investors, who were supposed to pour money into these ventures, never materialized in the numbers the kingdom had anticipated. But there is something deeper at work here, something that repeats across decades. Ellen Wald, author of "Saudi, Inc.," has watched this pattern before. In the 2000s, King Abdullah announced the Economic Cities programme, another bid to diversify away from oil. Billions were spent. Most of the proposed cities never materialized. The largest, King Abdullah Economic City on the Red Sea coast, did get built—but it never became the business and tourism hub it was meant to be. By 2016, Saudi unemployment still hovered around twelve percent.
Wald sees a structural problem: a "yes man" mentality that insulates decision-makers from reality. Consultants tell clients what they want to hear because they want the contracts. Foreign companies don't ask hard questions because they fear losing lucrative work. Officials present visions without asking whether the market actually exists for them. The result is a cycle of announcement, spending, and disappointment that has repeated for decades. When MBS became de facto ruler in 2017, he inherited a system that needed overhauling—but he also brought his own complications. That same year, he ordered the mass detention of Saudi Arabia's elite in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, extracting an estimated hundred billion dollars in settlements. In 2018, the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in the country's consulate in Istanbul. These episodes, observers say, have scared away investors who prize predictability above all else. When a person can be an investor one day and an arbitrary detainee the next, capital flees.
Vision 2030 was designed to transform Saudi Arabia in three ways at once: economically, politically, and socially. The social changes have been real—women can drive now, entertainment venues have proliferated in cities like Riyadh, the texture of daily life has shifted. Young Saudis have found the ambitions inspiring. But politically, dissent has been punished as severely as ever. And economically, the megaprojects that were supposed to attract private and foreign investment to match the state's oil wealth have only partly succeeded. The pivot now is being framed as pragmatism rather than retreat. The sovereign fund's governor recently spoke of focusing on "efficiency" and "sustainable evaluation" rather than scale. Smaller wins—a traditional resort on a Red Sea island, the revival of the old capital Diriyah, the development of the ancient site of AlUla—are being presented as the true substance of the vision. The World Cup in 2034 remains a major test of whether the kingdom can execute at scale.
What has changed is the conversation. Before the recent war, the Saudis were talking about Neom as a hub for artificial intelligence and advanced industries. Now, with regional conflict creating uncertainty, the messaging shifts monthly. Officials acknowledge mistakes and talk about correcting course—a departure from past concealment. But investors want more than acknowledgment. They want to see execution that actually works. For the big players in sport, entertainment, and art who have grown dependent on Saudi cash, the tap is now dripping or shut off entirely. The kingdom is not answerable to its people for the billions spent on projects that may exist only on the internet. The Crown Prince's popularity among young Saudis remains high. That gives the leadership room to discard megaprojects as waste paper. Whether it gives them room to rebuild trust with the foreign investors they still need is a different question entirely.
Notable Quotes
This is the same playbook...You know, 'We're going to build this huge thing. Oh wait, well now we're going to significantly downscale it.' And it's the same thing over and over again.— Ellen Wald, author of Saudi, Inc.
Long term, it's actually scared away investors...When you have no predictability, you can simply be an investor one day and the next an arbitrary detainee.— Abdullah al-Ouda, human rights activist
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does this pattern keep repeating? The Economic Cities in the 2000s, now Vision 2030—it's the same cycle.
Because the system rewards saying yes. A consultant who tells the Crown Prince his idea won't work doesn't get the contract. A foreign company that asks hard questions loses access. Everyone has an incentive to pretend the market exists when it doesn't.
But surely someone inside the government sees this coming?
They might. But in a system without real political accountability, the cost of being wrong is lower than the cost of contradicting power. You can always blame external factors—oil prices, the war, investor sentiment. You can't blame the vision itself.
So what changes now? They're scaling back, but is that real reform or just damage control?
It's both. They're genuinely learning that you can't build a ski resort in the desert or a hundred-mile-long city without massive unforeseen costs. But they're also reframing failure as strategy—calling it "disciplined prioritization" instead of admitting the original plans were unrealistic.
And the human rights issues—do those actually matter to foreign investors, or is that just what Western observers say?
It matters more than the Saudis want to admit. When you detain businessmen in a hotel and extract billions, or when a journalist is killed in your consulate, investors lose the one thing they need most: predictability. You can't plan a thirty-year project in a place where the rules change arbitrarily.