This is the most powerful gathering of global elites you’ve never heard of. His 36-hour conference in Miami, where billionaires, CEOs and celebrities gather, has a stated agenda of “making a positive impact,” and the conference is a gathering of billionaires, CEOs, and celebrities, with a stated agenda of “making a positive impact.”
The Future Investment Initiative (FII) is an attempt by the oil-rich kingdom to gain publicity and compete with the World Economic Forum in Davos in setting the global agenda. The Miami event is an outgrowth of the annual Saudi conference in October, known as Davos in the Desert.
This week, the Post reported that Wall Street titans, who control an estimated $10 trillion in assets (nearly twice what the federal government spends in a year), have swayed the likes of Saudi business elites and Gwyneth Paltrow and Rob Lowe. I observed how they interacted with celebrities.
The guest list included Steve Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, which manages $880 billion, David Rubenstein, founder of private equity giant Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Names included executives from State Street and Franklin Templeton.
It was held at The Faena, a luxury hotel in South Beach that costs an average of $1,000 a night.
Over tea, coffee and water, they mingled as the FII respects the Islamic country’s prohibition on alcohol — former President Trump’s son-in-law has nearly all of his $2 billion in investment funds in Saudi Arabia. Jared Kushner, the cashier of Ziarab, and Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s former Treasury secretary. He also raised funds in the area.
The 10 richest speakers at the two-day event boasted a combined personal wealth of $300 billion, according to The Post’s calculations.
The conference itself is a sign of Saudi Arabia’s growing confidence as an international power broker under its de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but no one attended the conference. It wasn’t.
This is the second time the event has been held in the United States, and unlike last year, when tickets were free, this week’s attendees paid up to $15,000 to attend.
The event still attracts the world’s elite, including Davos, the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado in June, and the Allen & Company retreat for media powerhouses in Sun Valley, Idaho. Although it has not received as much media attention as other destinations on its annual itinerary, it is another prestige play by the Saudis.
In return for their participation, they could tap into a geyser of cash at the disposal of the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).
As if anyone needed to remind us of the huge sums of money involved, in the first minutes of the event Yasir al-Rumayan, chairman of the Saudi publicly traded oil company Aramco, announced that he would be making an additional $70 billion in the United States. announced plans to spend. In addition to investing an estimated $100 billion since 2017, it will begin in 2025.
“The data and numbers announced by the Aramco chairman were shocking,” one attendee said of Saudi investment plans.
“The conversation was not about introducing Saudi Arabia to investors, but rather ‘agenda-setting’,” another person said of the event.
Other attendees included Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers, real estate billionaire Stephen Ross, whose affiliates built New York’s Hudson Yards development, and hotel billionaire Barry Sternlicht. and sports investment CEO Jerry Cardinal (whose Redbird Capital Partners is part owner of the Boston Red Sox).
Paltrow started a venture fund after working for lifestyle brand Goop for more than a decade, and will likely look for funding for another fund soon.
“West Wing” actor and Atkins pitchman Rob Lowe was another Hollywood name attracted to Saudi wealth.
Off the table were Israel’s war in Gaza and escalating tensions in the Gulf due to Houthi attacks on ships off the coast of Yemen. There was also no mention of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.
In 2017, weeks after the first FII was held at a hotel in the capital, Riyadh, bin Salman used the same venue to imprison hundreds of rival royal family members and some of the country’s wealthiest people, and to confiscate power. strengthened its grip.
One source said the meeting felt as if “time stood still” and “excluded from the outside world.”
It also ignored the plight of Michael Klein, the investment banker who worked with the Saudi government to merge the PGA Golf Tour and the rival LIV event series.
He has been subpoenaed by parliament investigating the deal and has been told that if he responds he could face criminal charges in Saudi Arabia, which operates under Islamic law.
Saudi Arabia has asked Richard Attias, who co-founded the Clinton Global Initiative with Bill and Hillary Clinton, to run the FII event and fill it with appropriate talent.
“The transformation I have seen over the past five years is so massive that anything is possible,” Attias told the Post.
“There is nothing to prevent Americans from cooperating with Saudi Arabia,” he added.
