- Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
is a new generation in
the Saudi Royal Family.
He's going to be the first
of the next generation
to rule Saudi Arabia.
He's very young, and he
has some different ideas
about where Saudi Arabia should go.
So what he's doing here
is he's looking to attract businesses
to open in Saudi Arabia,
to bring jobs, to bring
an entrepreneurial spirit,
and to bring some dynamic
activity to the Kingdom.
Donald Trump, being the
President of the United States,
the Crown Prince is really
concerned about Iran.
That's really their primary
geo-political issue right now.
So his meeting with the President
is designed to express
Saudi policy towards Iran.
They would like the President
to really take a hard stance
on Iran, on Iran's activities,
particularly in Yemen,
as that threatens Saudi Arabia directly.
And they would also like Donald Trump
to take a very tough position
on the Iran Nuclear Deal.
They're very concerned
about Iran's ability
to develop a nuclear weapon,
and they've stated that if Iran acquires,
or looks like it's going to
acquire a nuclear weapon,
they will do so as well.
One of the things that Mohammed bin Salman
is very interested in doing is
he's interested in setting
up tech hubs, essentially,
in Saudi Arabia.
He announced this great
new city called NEOM
that they would like
to open on the Red Sea,
to be really an innovation
center in the Middle East.
And so his meeting with Bill Gates
is probably designed
to further those goals.
So Jeff Bezos, be CEO of Amazon,
one of the things that Mohammed
bin Salman and the Saudis
are looking to do, is they're
really looking to establish
Saudi Arabia as a logistics hub.
They see its orientation and
its location in the Middle East
as very valuable to that,
and one of those things is
bringing in data centers.
Apparently, the Middle East is very bereft
of cloud computing and data centers,
and so they're in talks with Amazon
to bring a data center
to the Red Sea Coast,
and I wouldn't be surprised
if some sort of deal
is announced very soon.
Oprah has a media empire,
and the King and the Royal
Family has recently decided
that Saudi Arabia will open movie theaters
around the country.
This is a new development.
Most of the movie theaters
closed in the late '70s.
And now they want to open movie theaters.
There will be some
interesting restrictions.
Some of them may have separate
seating for men and women,
but he's looking to
really get Saudi Arabia's
arts and cultural and
entertainment scene jump-started.
So I see his meeting with Oprah
as part of that initiative.
For many, many years, the Saudi economy
has largely been dependent
on the sale of oil,
and on oil revenues.
And his goal is to diversify the economy
and to create a much more dynamic place
that is not dependent on oil revenues
from the National Oil Company or Ramco.
(upbeat music)
