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Portrait of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) suspended in Riyadh one day before the FII conference of the Future Investment Initiative in October. FOLLOW NURELDINE / AFP / Getty Images
Last month, following the mysterious death of Washington Post The journalist Jamal Khashoggi and more and more evidence showing that the Saudi government is the murderer, a number of personalities from Silicon Valley, including Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, and the founder of Virgin Group, Richard Branson, have decided to withdraw from an economic conference organized by the Saudi government in Riyadh as a gesture of protest.
In the meantime, however, many companies in Silicon Valley do not seem to have any problem accepting Saudi money.
The Saudi government, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), 33, is very active on the American technology scene. The majority of its investments were made through SoftBank's $ 100 billion Vision Fund, half of which came from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, known as the PIF.
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At SoftBank's quarterly earnings conference on Monday, CEO Masayoshi Son said he was unaware of any Vision Fund-backed company that would have rejected recent investments because of its ties to Saudi Arabia .
Just last week, two Silicon Valley companies – View Glass and Zume Pizza – announced a total new $ 1.5 billion in funding from the Vision Fund. $ 1.1 billion has been allocated to View Glass, which makes smart glass windows that can automatically adjust the hue to natural light. and Zume Pizza, a restaurant in Mountain View, California, serving a pizza made by robot, received $ 375 million.
It is possible that both agreements were closed before the publication of the Khashoggi case.
Currently, the Vision Fund is negotiating with WeWork to take a controlling stake in the New York-based company for between $ 15 billion and $ 20 billion. If completed, the transaction will be the largest in the history of private equity.
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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Masayoshi Son at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh in 2017. FOLLOW NURELDINE / AFP / Getty Images
In the press release issued Monday, SonBank stated that SoftBank would continue to do business with Saudi Arabia because the company has "an obligation to the Saudi people to help it manage its business. financial resources to diversify its economy ", referring to the fact that the FIP was mainly taxes from the Saudi population.
That said, he had doubts about the possibility of establishing another one hundred billion dollar relationship with the Crown Prince.
In May, internal sources at SoftBank revealed that it was planning to create a second $ 100 billion fund next year, putting Saudi Arabia at the top of the list of contributors.
But shortly after Khashoggi's revelation, Marcelo Claure, chief executive of SoftBank, said at a technical conference in San Jose, California, that he "had no certainty" that SoftBank would launch a second Vision fund, adding that the company was "anxiously watching what happens" with the Khashoggi investigation.
In late October, Bloomberg announced that Son had a meeting with MBS in Riyadh on October 22, although the purpose of the meeting is unclear.
