Inside the Musk-Saudi alliance

Elon Musk attends a conference during the Saudi-US investment forum in Riyadh on May 13, 2025. (Photo by Fayez NURELDINE / AFP)

In August 2018, Elon Musk's excitable temperament led to a falling out with his wealthy investors in Riyadh. Musk had claimed in a tweet that he had secured the necessary funding to take Tesla private. He attributed the funding to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, saying he had discussed the take-private deal with the kingdom's sovereign wealth governor. But the preliminary interest PIF had in the deal ultimately dissipated. The sovereign fund, which had controlled a 5% stake in Tesla, dumped nearly all of its shares in early 2020.

In the intervening years, however, Musk has managed to rebuild his relationship with influential Saudi investors, while Riyadh has demonstrated a renewed confidence in his business empire. Billionaire Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, a Saudi royal, backed Musk's leveraged buyout of Twitter in 2022. Two Saudi citizens have been sentenced to death for posts they shared on Twitter, penalties that Musk has not spoken out against despite insisting that he bought the platform to advance free speech.

Al Waleed's Kingdom Holding Company purchased an $800 million stake in xAI, the artificial intelligence company that Musk merged with X. And in April, Saudi Arabia supplied Tesla with a badly needed win: The EV maker, whose sales are lagging worldwide, launched operations in the kingdom.

While Tesla is Musk's most valuable company, it is not the most globally significant part of his empire. That title belongs to SpaceX, the rocket company that owns and operates Starlink, the largest non-terrestrial broadband provider in the world. It was through Starlink that Musk landed his most recent victory in Saudi Arabia.

Speaking at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh on Tuesday, Musk announced that the Saudi government had approved the use of Starlink in the country. The satellite internet service will be reserved for "maritime and aviation use," he said, as opposed to general retail use for Saudi consumers. The announcement came shortly before ProPublica reported that the State Department had instructed its diplomats to pressure a number of foreign countries to adopt Starlink.

Musk, who visited the country as part of President Trump's entourage, also used the forum to advocate for the local launch of Tesla's planned robotaxi and humanoid robot products. "I think it would be very exciting to have autonomous vehicles here in the kingdom if you're amenable," he said while on stage with Abdullah Alswaha, the Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology.

Saudi Arabia has shown an increasing interest in SpaceX since 2022. That year, the Saudi space program inked a deal to send astronauts to space aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets. SpaceX also launched a Saudi satellite the following year. Riyadh used the 2023 launch as part of its image laundering efforts: The teams of astronauts featured the first Arab woman to enter orbit, a fact that the Saudi government promoted even as it continues to restrict the basic rights of women living in the country. Also in 2023, Saudi investors sought to invest in a SpaceX funding round, according to a report from The Information that Musk denied.

Still, SpaceX's relationship with Saudi Arabia has continued to grow. In March of last year, a Gulfstream jet used by SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell flew to Riyadh. A few months later, Alswaha, the same Saudi official who joined Musk for Starlink's Saudi launch announcement, visited the U.S. and met with Shotwell to discuss ways to develop a space industry that will serve humanity, according to a Saudi press release.

In the ensuing months, Saudi officials adopted a conciliatory stance toward Musk personally. Musk delivered a remote address before the Saudi Future Investment Initiative in October. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund who began the feud with Musk in 2018, was seated in the front row. The following month, two weeks after Musk succeeded in helping reelect Trump, Al-Rumayyan was seated beside Musk and the president-elect at a UFC event in New York.