Hollywood firm becomes first American entity to return Saudi investment after Khashoggi murder
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman last month. By Steven Zeitchik Steven Zeitchik Reporter covering the business of entertainment in the U.S. and beyond Email Bio Follow March 8 at 2:36 PM A bid by a Hollywood power player to return a $400 million investment to the Saudi Abrabian government after an outcry over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been fulfilled, a person with knowledge of the talks told The Washington Post.
"Evidence collected during my mission to Turkey shows prime facie case that Mr. Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the State of Saudi Arabia,” U.N. human-rights expert Agnes Callamard said last month after a fact-finding mission to Turkey.The kingdom has disputed the claims as “unsubstantiated” and in December lashed out at the Senate for interfering in its affairs.
Some Western firms, such as Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic, declined future investments from the Saudi fund in the wake of the Khashoggi murder. But none of the other major American entities that had already accepted funds, including several Silicon Valley and Wall Street giants, is known to have returned them. Ride-hailing company Uber accepted a $3.5 billion investment in 2016 to buttress itself against competitors like Lyft.
Mohammed had positioned himself as a reformer, easing the country’s infamous restrictions on women driving and allowing the first public movie theater to open. He also sought to invest the country’s oil profits in a range of global entities in a bid to reduce the country’s dependence on its core asset.
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