MBS leaves Washington with $575B in pledged Saudi deals
Amid the social splash and diplomatic advances that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made in Washington this week, the kingdom tallied some $575 billion in deals from two days of rubbing shoulders with America’s corporate elite.
Among the biggest was an agreement between Elon Musk’s xAI, Jensen Huang’s Nvidia and Saudi Arabia’s Humain to build a 500-megawatt data center to bolster the kingdom’s ambitions of becoming a world hub for powering artificial intelligence.
Humain, meanwhile, which was launched by the Public Investment Fund in May, formed a joint venture with Advanced Micro Devices and Cisco to build more Middle East data centers. Also announced was a deal between PIF-owned mining company Ma’aden and Pentagon-backed MP Materials to build a rare-earth refining facility in Saudi Arabia, challenging China’s dominance in global mineral markets. And Salesforce said it will set up a regional headquarters in Riyadh as it prepares to invest $500 million in AI and cloud services.
Addressing the Crown Prince and an entourage of his Cabinet ministers at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum held at Washington’s Kennedy Center on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said: “I want to thank you for bringing all those jobs and all those great opportunities to America.”
The deals were made possible, in part, by the U.S. Commerce Department allowing U.S. companies to sell advanced Nvidia chips to both Humain and Abu Dhabi AI company G42, The Wall Street Journal reports.
While the Saudi leader told Trump during their initial meeting this week in the Oval Office that the kingdom plans to spend almost $1 trillion in the U.S. – spanning energy, artificial intelligence, defense and aerospace, finance, infrastructure, education, and healthcare – many of the announcements involved preliminary agreements far from conclusion, The New York Times reports.
That reflects Saudi Arabia’s current financial constraints amid slumping oil prices that have produced serial budget deficits and forced cutbacks in NEOM and several of its other ambitious megaprojects.
Musk, Ronaldo join Trump at black-tie dinner for Saudi leader
The White House hosted a heavyweight mix of political, business and sports figures at President Donald Trump’s black-tie dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday night.
The guest list was filled with CEOs from tech and finance, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Apple’s Tim Cook, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser and Chevron’s Mike Wirth, Paramount’s David Ellison and Palantir’s Alex Karp.
Also present were Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman, as well as 26North’s Josh Harris, and Dina Powell McCormick, the Vice Chairman of merchant bank BDT-MSD and former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor. Another prominent guest was soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, who plays in the Saudi Pro League.
The Saudi leader, wearing his traditional royal robe while standing in the East Room next to a tuxedo-clad Trump, hailed the close ties between the two countries that go back nine decades. Earlier in the day, he said Saudi Arabia’s investment in the U.S. could reach close to $1 trillion.
“We believe the opportunity is huge,” Prince Mohammed said. “We’re going to focus on implementation and keep increasing the opportunities between our… countries.”
Trump hosted the dinner of pistachio-crusted rack of lamb and sweet potato puree with his wife Melania, who wore a green strapless gown designed by Lebanese couturier Elie Saab.
Members of the Trump administration who attended included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum,
and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Trump heads home after sewing up $200 billion in UAE deals
President Donald Trump wrapped up his four-day tour of the Gulf with a pomp-filled visit to the UAE, locking in some $200 billion in contracts that starts to fulfill the UAE’s pledge to spend $1.4 trillion in the U.S. over the next decade. He took off for Washington in the early afternoon.
With attention focused on the U.S. leader’s commitment to ease restrictions on selling advanced AI semiconductor chips to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the two countries signed an agreement to build an AI development campus in Abu Dhabi that would be the world’s largest outside the U.S.
Though specifics on the AI tech purchases were not disclosed, Trump and Sheikh Mohamed met together with Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, which is the largest maker of the most advanced chips.
“We’re making great progress for the $1.4 trillion that the UAE has announced that it intends to spend in the United States over the next couple of years,” Trump told the UAE-U.S. Business Forum in an address early today. “This will generate billions and billions of dollars in business and accelerate the UAE plans to become a really major player in artificial intelligence.”
Trump also met with Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and CEO of ADNOC, at the business summit.
Among the deals were a $14.5 billion commitment from Etihad Airways for the purchase of 28 Boeing aircraft and a $60 billion oil and gas deal with ADNOC involving ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum, and EOG Resources. UAE officials said today the country will increase the value of its energy investments in the U.S. to $440 billion over the next 10 years.
Before returning to Washington, Trump visited the Abrahamic Family House on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, the monumental prayer compound built by the UAE that contains a mosque, a church and a synagogue.
Gliding into President Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed’s Qasr Al Watan palace grounds on Thursday night for a state dinner, Trump’s motorcade was flanked by mounted camels to the right and Arabian stallions to the left, The Circuit’s Omnia Al Desoukie reports from Abu Dhabi.
The Emirati and American leaders then strode together through the palace’s grand marble halls, where Emirati children waved flags while the national anthems of both countries were played. President Trump was presented by Sheikh Mohammed with the Order of Zayed, the country’s highest civilian award, which was also given to former U.S. President George W. Bush in 2008.
Among the guests at the state dinner were Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed; UAE Vice President; Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi; Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, UAE National Security Adviser; Sheikh Abdallah bin Zayed, the UAE Foreign Minister; and Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE Ambassador to the U.S.
Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Managing Director and Group CEO of the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, and Peng Xiao, CEO of AI tech company G42 were also present.
Senior U.S. officials at the state dinner included U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Martina Strong, U.S. Ambassador to the UAE.
Trump moves on to Qatar after bounty of deals in Saudi Arabia
U.S. President Donald Trump took his Middle East dealmaking tour to Qatar today after a summit meeting in Riyadh with leaders of the six Gulf states that focused in part on promoting more investment in American military hardware and artificial intelligence.
The visit to Qatar’s capital of Doha continued to generate criticism from Democrats in Congress over Trump’s intention to accept a gift from the Qatari government of a refurbished $400 million plane that would temporarily replace Air Force One.
Arriving in the early afternoon after a short flight from Saudi Arabia, Trump landed at Hamad International Airport in Doha and was met by Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim, who was waiting on a yellow carpet to symbolize the desert peninsula’s sandy terrain.
Tomorrow, the President will meet Qatari business leaders for breakfast and greet U.S. soldiers at the Al Udeid U.S. Air Base, before taking off for the UAE.
In his two-day visit to Riyadh, Trump lavished attention on Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who said he would try to meet the President’s challenge for investing $1 trillion in the U.S. over the next four years.
At a Saudi-U.S. business conference in Riyadh, Trump and MBS held court with a constellation of billionaires, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman and Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio.
From the Saudi business world, the conference featured Muhammad Al Jasser, Chairman of Islamic Development Bank; Nabeel Koshak, CEO of Saudi Venture Capital; Marc Winterhoff, Interim CEO of Lucid; John Pagano, Group CEO of Red Sea Global; Mohammad Abunayyan, Chairman of ACWA Power; Tony Douglas, CEO of Riyadh Air; and Jerry Inzerillo, Group CEO of Diriyah Co.
The Saudi Crown Prince wrapped up the day by bringing Trump for a tour of Diriyah, the ancestral home of the Al Saud royal family, which was led by Inzerillo. The site is undergoing a massive renovation as one of the multibillion megaprojects undertaken by the kingdom, along with the 100-mile long Neom city on the kingdom’s west coast and the Al Mukkab skyscraper cube in Riyadh.
Among the biggest issues discussed in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday was the extent to which the Trump administration would lift sanctions on AI semiconductor chips that are being eagerly sought by the Gulf states.
Nvidia, the world’s biggest semiconductor maker, agreed to supply its most advanced AI chips to Saudi Arabia’s Humain, a company created to push that country’s AI infrastructure efforts, Bloomberg reports. Humain will get “several hundred thousand” of Nvidia’s most advanced processors over the next five years, starting with 18,000 of its cutting-edge GB300 Grace Blackwell products and its InfiniBand networking technology.
Huang saw his personal net worth surge to approximately $120 billion over the day, up from $80 billion a year ago, driven by soaring demand for the company’s AI chips that has fueled a sharp rise in its stock, Reuters reports.
AMD, Nvidia’s nearest rival in AI accelerators, will provide chips and software for data centers “stretching from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United States” in a $10 billion project, Humain and AMD said.
Also, Saudi VC firm STV launched a $100 million AI fund backed by Google to invest in MENA startups, as part of a broader set of tech-focused U.S.-Saudi agreements announced during President Trump’s visit to Riyadh, Bloomberg reports. And Saudi Arabia agreed to authorize the use of Musk’s Starlink service for aviation and maritime shipping, the SpaceX founder announced.
MBS tells Trump in Riyadh he’ll try to invest $1 trillion in U.S.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told President Donald Trump and a solid portion of the world’s business elite on Tuesday that he hopes to fulfill his pledge to invest $600 billion in the U.S. and might even hit the $1 trillion mark sought by the White House.
In turn, Trump praised MBS as a visionary leader and hailed the U.S.-Saudi alliance as a profitable enterprise for both sides as the two spoke at a business conference in Riyadh and the president kicked off a four-day swing through the Gulf that will also take him to Qatar and the UAE.
“Today we hope for investment opportunities worth $600 billion, including deals worth $300 billion that were signed during this forum,” the Saudi leader said in a speech at the capital city’s King Abdulaziz International Conference Center. “We will work in the coming months on the second phase to complete deals and raise it to $1 trillion,” he said.
A good chunk of that commitment will come from an agreement to sell Saudi Arabia an arms package worth nearly $142 billion, which the White House called “the largest defense cooperation agreement” that the U.S. has ever signed.
Trump beamed as he followed MBS onstage to address an audience that included Tesla founder Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Aramco CEO Amin Nasser, Saudi Public Investment Fund Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan and hundreds of other corporate leaders, investors and government officials from the two countries.
The President thanked MBS for setting the $1 trillion goal and talked for close to an hour about his affection for the kingdom, ticking off several of the deals signed by the two countries during the day.
“So, number one, I like visiting with you, and we’ve known each other very well, and I really believe we like each other a lot and, number two, for the United States, we’ve brought tremendous investment in and tremendous jobs, and we continue to service your great country very well,” Trump said.
The U.S. leader also said he maintains a “fervent hope” that Saudi Arabia will join the Abraham Accords to normalize relations with Israel, as the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco did in 2020, though he added, “you’ll do it in your own time.”
Earlier in the day, the Saudi Crown Prince took the unusual step of greeting Trump in person when the president landed on a flight from Washington at King Khalid International Airport outside Riyadh.
Unlike former President Joe Biden’s tense visit and cautious fist bump in 2022, MBS stood on the tarmac and patiently watched Trump descend from Air Force One onto a royal purple carpet. The two shook hands and Trump gave the prince a warm shoulder tap before they strode together to the waiting motorcade.
The greeting underlined the intentions on both sides to make Trump’s first regional trip in his second term a public success and broadcast the closeness of the U.S.-Saudi alliance.
Inside the Al-Yamamah Palace where a lavish reception and lunch were held, both leaders were accompanied by top Cabinet ministers and a roster of business leaders, with Trump’s entourage including Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
Conversations at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum – held at the same site beside the marble-lined Ritz-Carlton Hotel as the annual Future Investment Initiative conference – were focused on concrete dealmaking and illustrated the seriousness in both countries to make the most of the rare event, said Tally Zingher, Managing Director of the U.S.-headquartered boutique advisory firm Blue Laurel.
“Being here allows me to listen and observe firsthand how the Saudis are articulating their priorities and how those priorities have already manifested into concrete opportunities for U.S. companies,” Zingher told The Circuit.
Among the headliners addressing the conference were Khalid Bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, Minister of Investment; Mohammed Al-Jadaan, Minister of Finance; Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Minister of Energy; Bandar Alkhorayef, Minister of Industry and Minerals and Faisal Alibrahim, Minister of Economy & Planning.
The U.S. delegation was headed by Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury; Howard Lutnick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce; and David Sacks, the White House Special Advisor on AI and Crypto.
From the Saudi business world, the conference featured Muhammad Al Jasser, Chairman, Islamic Development Bank; Nabeel Koshak, CEO of Saudi Venture Capital; Marc Winterhoff, Interim CEO of Lucid; John Pagano, Group CEO of Red Sea Global; Mohammad Abunayyan, Chairman of ACWA Power; Tony Douglas, CEO of Riyadh Air and Jerry Inzerillo, Group CEO of Diriyah Co.
U.S. financiers at the forum included Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, Franklin Templeton’s Jenny Johnson, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman and Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio, LionTree’s Aryeh Bourkoff and BDT & MSD Partners’ Dina Powell McCormick.
From the U.S. tech industry, Palantir’s Alex Karp joined the forum as well as Alphabet/Google’s Ruth Porat, Amazon’s Andy Jassy, IBM’s Arvind Krishna and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon.
With planemakers and defense contractors set to reap billions in Saudi deals, the conference featured Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, Lockheed Martin’s Michael Williamson, Honeywell’s Ken West and Halliburton’s Jeff Miller.
Among other speakers at the summit, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is a perennial fixture at the FII conference and hosted a spinoff conference in his city last February, where Trump spoke. Also appearing was Gianni Infantino, President of world soccer’s governing FIFA organization, after Saudi Arabia was picked to host the 2034 World Cup.
Trump hints at lifting AI chip restrictions ahead of trip to Gulf
Indications that President Donald Trump will modify or even scrap U.S. sanctions on the sale of advanced AI semiconductor chips are building anticipation for his trip to the Gulf next week.
A statement from the Commerce Department in Washington on Wednesday criticized the Biden-era rules – originated to fence in China and extended to a circle of U.S. allies including the UAE and Saudi Arabia – as “overly complex, overly bureaucratic” and a barrier to “American innovation.”
Following up a few hours later in response to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said: “We might be doing that, and it’ll be announced soon.”
Dubbed the Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, former President Joe Biden issued rules a week before he left office making it more difficult for foreign countries to buy the most advanced chips made by Nvidia that drew the greatest demand from providers of artificial intelligence services and AI developers.
The UAE, through its state-owned G42 firm and MGX fund, has placed AI at the center of its national ambitions to be a global tech leader.
Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE’s National Security Adviser and Chairman of a network of government companies including G42 and MGX, appealed to Trump during a White House visit in March to lift the chip restrictions. One incentive was the $1.4 trillion investment package Sheikh Tahnoon announced that would be spent in the U.S. over 10 years.
The Emirati royal also met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and a constellation of other U.S. tech leaders with whom the UAE has forged billion-dollar partnerships to finance AI development and build massive AI data centers.
Musk’s xAI, Nvidia join with MGX in artificial intelligence fund
The UAE’s biggest tech firms are capitalizing on White House support to tighten partnerships with America’s leaders in the booming industry of artificial intelligence.
A consortium created last year by Abu Dhabi investment fund MGX, Microsoft and BlackRock to finance power-hungry AI data centers welcomed chipmaker Nvidia and Elon Musk’s xAI to the group on Wednesday.
Expansion of the top-level venture came amid the Washington visit by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, the UAE National Security Advisor and Chairman of MGX and a constellation of other tech companies, who dined at the White House this week with President Donald Trump.
Sheikh Tahnoon, who held a meeting with Musk through a video feed on Wednesday, has been accompanied through the trip by Khaldoon Al Mubarak, the MGX Vice Chairman and CEO of the Mubadala sovereign wealth fund. Also on the visit is Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of the ADNOC national oil company and the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology. Peng Xiao, CEO of the Abu Dhabi-based AI company G42, joined the call with Musk.
Among the other meetings in his U.S. rounds, Sheikh Tahnoon said he “explored opportunities for collaboration and investment” with Oracle’s Larry Ellison.
ADQ, meanwhile, another Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon, agreed to invest a combined $5 billion in a partnership with U.S-based Energy Capital Partners to build power stations for data centers and AI projects – with the investment eventually reaching $25 billion.
The announcement came as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told the company’s GTC conference in San Jose, Calif., that the industry is preparing for a massive leap in building data centers and chip manufacturing plants with accompanying energy demand.
“Over the next several years, we’re going to be building giant AI factories,” he said. Not normal AI factories … ones you see from space,” Huang said.
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang to talk chips at conference in Dubai
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – The founder of the world’s first semiconductor company to be valued at more than $1 trillion will take the stage on Day 1 of the World Governments Summit in Dubai next week.
Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of California-headquartered Nvidia, will be in conversation with Omar Al Olama, the UAE’s Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, discussing who will shape the future of AI.
The annual summit was started by Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid in 2013 to serve as a global knowledge exchange program for governments.
Asked about the summit’s role against the backdrop of escalating geopolitical tensions in the region, Mohammad Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs and Chairman of the World Governments Summit Organization, said that the event focuses on laying out a future roadmap for governments. “We don’t claim to have all the solutions, but we try to get a glimpse of the future,” he said.
Alongside Huang, AI leaders like Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, are also scheduled to attend. Others include Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank; Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund; Klaus Schwab, Chairperson of the World Economic Forum; and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization.
Mubadala Investment Co. Managing Director and Group CEO Khaldoon Al Mubarak is also on the Day 1 agenda, onstage with Stephen Pagliuca, the founder, Chairman and CEO of Bain Capital. Pagliuca, who is also co-owner of the Boston Celtics, will be alongside Ross Perot Jr., Chairman of The Perot Group.
Closing out the first day will be former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. The lightning rod newsman, who found a landing pad in Elon Musk’s X last year after departing his eponymous show, is reportedly raising millions of dollars for his own media company. He will give a talk titled, “What’s next for storytelling.”
