The Saudi Fund helped refinance X debt on the day before Musc’s visit

OOn Monday in Riyadh, during the Saudi-US Investment Forum, Elon Musk announced during a conversation by the fire with the Minister of Communications and Information Technologies of the Kingdom that Starlink, the satellite internet arm of his SpaceX rocket company, had concluded an agreement with Saudi Arabia to provide services to the country’s maritime companies.

It was the second MUSC company to conclude an agreement with the Saudis in as many weeks. On April 29, X Corp., Musk’s social media company, raised $ 1.23 billion in fresh debt to refinance part of its existing debt load of $ 12 billion in Musk’s leverage asset three years ago. One of the companies helping to refinance X debt was Kingdom Holding Company, the investment company chaired by the Saudi billionaire, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, according to Manual. It is not clear how many $ 1.23 billion was funded by Kingdom Holding. A Kingdom Holding spokesperson refused to comment. X corp. did not respond to a request for comments. The involvement of the Saudi company in the refinancing agreement has not been reported before.

Kingdom Holding has good reasons to help X manage its debt. The company is one of the largest minority investors in Musk’s holdings, the recently formed entity which includes X and XAI, the artificial intelligence startup of Musk. The Saudi company referred its investment on existing Twitter when Musk took the private social media platform in 2022, then participated in the two XAI financing cycles of $ 6 billion last May and last November. A few days ago, Prince Alwaleed tweeted an image generated by the AI-even Lui by watching a chess match between Musk and Trump.

^{Do you have a tip on Musk? Put your hand to jhyatt@forbes.com or 720-951-2080 on signal.}

Things were not always as harmonious between Musk and the Saudis. The kingdom’s sovereign heritage fund, PIF, had built a participation in Tesla almost 5% in 2018, before Musk wrongly tweeted that he had funding from Saudis to take the car manufacturer. The SEC continued Musk, and Musk said he would “probably not do” money to the Saudis following the murder of the journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudis would then have sold most of their Tesla actions in 2020.

The change in the two parties reflects a wider embrace of Musk by gulf investors while the richest man in the world has cemented his global influence and his political power as one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers during his second administration. In addition, there is Musk’s desire to exploit foreign capital to help finance her growing empire of private startups. In addition to receiving the support of the Saudis, Musk has exploited sovereign funds and companies affiliated with the State in Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Water in the past year for investments and new offers, including fundraising for XAI, its artificial intelligence start-up which aims to behave with Openai.

Qatar, which makes the headlines for its donation of an 400 million dollar plane to Trump, was early for the Party Musk. Its more than $ 500 billion in sovereign fortune, Qatar Investment Authority, invested $ 375 million in Musk’s Twitter’s acquisition in 2022. In the past year, oil (population: 3 million people) has expanded. Last summer, he opened his first Tesla store and exhibition hall. In October, Qatar Airways of State presented a partnership with the Musk Starlink Internet Supplier to bring Wi-Fi aboard its commercial lines. In November, shortly after Trump’s elections, Sovereign Wealth Fund invested in the fund of funds of $ 6 billion in Xai. In January, the fund announced that it would pay Nova Sky Stories, a lighting company belonging to the brother of Elon Musk, Kimbal, a non -disclosed amount to carry out shows across the country for the next two years.

Oman and Kuwait are also donors from Musk’s Xai. The Oman Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund of $ 50 billion, has invested undisclosed amounts in the two $ 6 billion fundraising cycles last year. Kuwait Investment Authority, an investment fund supported by the state with 1 dollars of dollars in assets, has invested an undisclosed amount in the XAI fund collection cycle in November.

The United Arab Emirates and its various funds supported by the State do not seem to have supported Xai. However, Alpha Dhabi Holding, an investment portfolio company with links with the Abu Dhabi manager dynasty, invested in SpaceX in May 2022. More recently in February, the United Arab Emirates, announced that the Musk Tunnel start-up, the boring company, would build one of its underground curls in Dubai in Dubai. “(It is) will cover the most densely populated area of ​​Dubai so that people have a point to point in a transparent way,” said the Minister of Artificial Intelligence of the United Arab Emirates in a round table recorded in February. The only existing tunnel of the boring company, in which Teslas closed people around a conference center in Las Vegas, is assaulted by intruders and minimal traffic.

Musk apparently hopes that the Saudis will also give the boring society new contracts. During his conversation by the fire on Monday, when he asked him questions about XAI, Musk spoke of his business: “I should also mention, something that deserves to be considered is tunnels,” he said. “I have this company called The Boring Company, which seems a little boring, but it literally leads tunnels.”

Unsurprisingly, all these commercial transactions combined with Musk’s influence with Donald Trump as informal advisor and as a Doge manager, pose many concerns about conflicts of interest, according to experts. “It is almost impossible to leave certain prejudices at the door and, therefore, any advice offered by Musk must be taken into account on the basis of its corporate entanglement,” explains Scott Amey, general lawyer for the surveillance of government, a Washington -based reflection group, DC, “This is why we have ethical advantages and not periods for the public”. Maybe that’s how Musk wants.