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 okays F-35 sale to Saudi Arabia in prelude to MBS summit

Even before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman touched down earlier today with an entourage of 1,000 on his first visit to the U.S. in seven years, U.S. President Donald Trump was playing dealmaker.

Bucking opposition in Congress for one of the most controversial items on the agenda when the two leaders meet at the White House, Trump said the sale to Saudi Arabia of a fleet of F-35 stealth fighter jets for roughly $4 billion was practically in the bag.

“They want to buy it, they’ve been a great ally,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, adding, “Yeah, I will say that we will be doing that. We’ll be selling F-35s.”

Virtually every member of the Saudi cabinet, senior officials from the Public Investment Fund and CEOs from state-owned companies will be among those accompanying Prince Mohammed as part of a delegation Al-Arabiya said would total about 1,000. A more exclusive black-tie dinner is being arranged in the White House East Room for tonight.

Among the business leaders will be Tareq Amin, CEO of state-backed Humain, who is pitching Silicon Valley companies on the kingdom as a major source of AI computing power and is visiting the White House to seek U.S. approval for access to advanced American chips, Bloomberg reports.

Humain is central to Saudi plans to build large-scale AI infrastructure as the country aims to become one of the world’s largest exporters of computing resources.

On Wednesday, the two countries are organizing a Saudi-American investment forum at the Kennedy Center in Washington, where both leaders are expected to appear, similar to the conference Saudi Arabia sponsored in May when Trump visited the kingdom. This week’s event is being organized by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment and the U.S.-Saudi Business Council.

Bahrain’s Premier pledges $17B in investments at Trump meeting

If there were any doubts about Bahrain’s commitment to pouring $17 billion into the U.S. economy, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa insisted at the White House that “these aren’t fake deals.”

Meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday before joining him for a private lunch, Prince Salman, who serves as Bahrain’s Prime Minister, hailed the relationship between the two countries, which includes Bahrain hosting the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

In response, Trump said he appreciated the investment and admired Bahrain’s ability to pay for it. “You don’t have to borrow the money,” he said.

Nevertheless, the President recalled his swing through the Middle East in May when he was showered with investment pledges from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE that dwarfed what Bahrain plans to spend.

All told, Trump said he came out of the trip with $5.1 trillion in deals, more than twice what was previously announced.

While Prince Salman didn’t spell out Bahrain’s shopping list in defense deals or corporate transactions, Bahraini financial institutions and corporate firms announced plans to invest $10.7 billion in the U.S. That included a $2 billion agreement between Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, and a consortium of American companies in aluminum-related industries.

In addition, Bahrain’s flag carrier Gulf Air is reportedly weighing an order for up to 20 additional Boeing aircraft to modernize its fleet, according to Bloomberg.

Along with the Bahrain visit, Trump hosted a private dinner on Wednesday with Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, which focused on the Gulf state’s effort to mediate hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

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.

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.

Trump tariffs threaten U.S.-MENA films, Arab producers warn

U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed new 100% tariffs on films made “in foreign lands” could disrupt productions already underway in the MENA region, as well as hurting plans to attract more American projects, according to Arab producers and filmmakers.

“As a producer who has spent years bridging Hollywood and Abu Dhabi, I’ve seen first-hand how international collaboration strengthens the industry creatively and economically,” Qais Qandil, the Jordanian founder of The Film Makers, an Emirati production company, told The National.

“It may complicate my immediate plans to bring more U.S. projects to the region.” Countries including the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia offer generous tax incentives to attract international productions.

Abu Dhabi, in particular, has been a major location for blockbusters including the “Mission: Impossible” series and “Dune: Part 2.”

Qandil said U.S. productions also chose Middle East locations for their world-class infrastructure and cinematic value, not just the incentives.

“It could discourage the very partnerships that have made modern filmmaking thrive,” he said.

MBS holds $600 billion call with Trump as new term begins

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and U.S. President Donald Trump are picking up where they left off four years ago.

After congratulating Trump on his return to Washington in a phone call on Wednesday, Prince Mohammed, who is also Prime Minister, said he’s willing to boost investment and trade with the U.S. by $600 billion through 2028.

The Saudi kingdom hopes to participate in the new U.S. administration’s “ability to create unprecedented economic prosperity and opportunity,” the Crown Prince said in the SPA dispatch.

Trump responded on Thursday during a virtual address to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“I’ll be asking the Crown Prince, who’s a fantastic guy, to round it out to around $1 trillion,” Trump said, adding, “I think they’ll do that because we’ve been very good to them.”

Trump, appearing on screen from the White House during his 15-minute speech, took questions afterward from a panel in Davos that included Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne and Banco Santander Chair Ana Botin.

Trump forged a close relationship with the heir to the Saudi throne during his first term and said he selected the kingdom for his first overseas trip as president in 2017 because of its commitment to buy U.S. weapons and other goods.

Shortly after his inauguration on Monday, Trump told reporters he’d consider visiting Saudi Arabia again if it would agree to buy “another $450 billion or $500 billion” worth of U.S. products.

Even before he stood inside the Capitol this week to take the oath of office, Trump made clear that the Gulf’s power players will find a friend in the White House.

Damac Group CEO Hussain Sajwani for one. The billionaire Dubai builder turned up a week into the new year at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., where he stood beside the President-elect and pledged an investment of at least $20 billion to build new data centers across the U.S.

Sajwani, who has described himself in press releases as “Trump’s Middle Eastern business partner,” said Damac would move ahead with the plan “if the opportunity, the market, allows us.” 

The relationship between the two men dates back a decade when Trump and Sajwani teamed up to develop luxury golf courses in Dubai. Trump said the massive investment in data centers will “keep America on the cutting edge of technology and artificial intelligence.”

A second Gulf financial chieftain who has been circulating around Trump since his election in November is Saudi Arabia’s Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Public Investment Fund.

Al-Rumayyan is also Chairman of LIV Golf, the upstart PIF-owned tournament that first challenged and now may merge with the PGA.

The new league, which poached some of the PGA’s top stars with contracts of as much as $200 million, announced Tuesday that it would hold a tournament in April at the Trump National Doral resort near Miami for the fourth consecutive year.

Trump’s vow to promote U.S. oil puts pressure on OPEC states

President Donald Trump’s inaugural promise to unleash the U.S. oil industry and stifle the Biden administration’s push toward renewable fuels produced muted reactions in Saudi Arabia, the world’s No. 2 oil producer after America.

Asked about what Trump’s vow to “drill, baby, drill” and vastly increase U.S. petroleum production meant for OPEC countries, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said he’s confident that rising world oil demand – particularly from China – will cushion the impact.

“We still think the market is healthy,” Nasser told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Last year we averaged around 104.6 million barrels (per day); this year, we’re expecting an additional demand of about 1.3 million barrels … so there is growth in the market.”

UAE Economy Minister Abdulla bin Touq, meanwhile, expressed frustration with the European Union over maintaining his country on its “black list” of countries that are not doing enough to combat money laundering.

Bin Touq said the UAE will hold talks with the E.U. to settle the issue. “I do not understand how the UAE is still on the black list,” he told Bloomberg in an interview at Davos. The Paris-based watchdog Financial Action Task Force’s decision dropped the UAE from its parallel “gray list” last year.

At its pavilion on the Davos Promenade Tuesday morning, the UAE delegation hosted a breakfast talk featuring Minister for Cabinet Affairs Mohammad Al Gergawi, International Holding Co.  CEO Syed Basar Shueb and 2PointZero CEO Mariam Almheiri.