Saudi Prince's Rise to Power Turns Him Into a Billionaire Boss

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

It was an unprecedented move against once-inviolable power figures in the kingdom, framed as a crackdown on corruption.

To pull it off, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman turned the marble-floored Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh into a prison in November 2017 for hundreds of men. Many of the captives—some of them his relatives and princes in their own rights—were released only after agreeing to sign over to the government assets including land, cash and business stakes. The total recovered, Saudi authorities said, was some $107 billion.

That sensational show of power upended decades of unwritten rules within the secretive House of Saud and effectively sidelined the crown prince’s potential opponents in one sweep. With his rise in the kingdom’s pecking order to presumptive heir to the throne, he became not only the de facto political leader of the petro-state but the unrivaled billionaire boss of a sprawling family firm with more money than almost any other dynasty on the planet.

-snip-

Until recently, high-ranking princes could basically treat government ministries as personal fiefdoms. Prince Mohammed upended that system.

“There used to be a fuzzy border between state finances and senior princes,” said Steffen Hertog, author of the 2010 book “Princes, Brokers and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia” and a professor at the London School of Economics. “There are only two people left who have that kind of direct access: the crown prince and the king.”

​​​​​​​Prince Mohammed, estimated to be worth more than $1 billion on his own, addressed his wealth, to a point, in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired in March last year.

“As far as my private expenses, I’m a rich person and not a poor person,” he said. “I’m a member of the ruling family that existed for hundreds of years before the founding of Saudi Arabia.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/saudi-princes-rise-to-power-turns-him-into-a-billionaire-boss/ar-AAFD4vs?li=BBnbfcN

He sounds more like a mob boss.

[Kid Berwyn]

1. No mention of pocket doily Jared Kushner...

So...

SAUDI CROWN PRINCE BOASTED THAT JARED KUSHNER WAS “IN HIS POCKET”

Alex Emmons, Ryan Grim, Clayton Swisher
The Intercept, March 21, 2018

Excerpt...

It is likely that Crown Prince Mohammed would have known who his critics were without Kushner mentioning them, a U.S. government official who declined to be identified pointed out. The crown prince may also have had his own reasons for saying that Kushner shared information with him, even if that wasn’t true. Just the appearance that Kushner did so would send a powerful message to the crown prince’s allies and enemies that his actions were backed by the U.S. government.

One of the people MBS told about the discussion with Kushner was UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, according to a source who talks frequently to confidants of the Saudi and Emirati rulers. MBS bragged to the Emirati crown prince and others that Kushner was “in his pocket,” the source told The Intercept.

Access to the President’s Daily Brief is tightly guarded, but Trump has the legal authority to allow Kushner to disclose information contained in it. If Kushner discussed names with MBS as an approved tactic of U.S. foreign policy, the move would be a striking intervention by the U.S. into an unfolding power struggle at the top levels of an allied nation. If Kushner discussed the names with the Saudi prince without presidential authorization, however, he may have violated federal laws around the sharing of classified intelligence.

Continues...

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/21/jared-kushner-saudi-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman/

Anyone remember the Safari Club? For oil!