Amr Nabil/AP Photo
Consultants linked to Bidenworld have advised Saudi Arabia about MBS’s most ostentatious vanity project.
It’s only taken six weeks for major conflicts of interest to arise for President Biden. Days after Secretary of State Tony Blinken let the Saudi crown prince off the hook for butchering a journalist, Blinken’s former colleagues in the private sector have reaped millions of dollars in contracts from Mohammed bin Salman.
The timing is bad for accountability, but good for business.
On Friday, the Biden administration released a two-page unclassified intelligence report summarizing MBS’s culpability in the killing, dismemberment, and disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018. By releasing the report, Biden broke with Trump’s unmitigated deference for the Saudi royal who is likely to succeed his elderly father King Salman. The intelligence report didn’t leave any room for doubt of who ordered the killing of Khashoggi.
Biden’s team may have thought that publishing the damning document would represent a harsh rebuke of the young Saudi prince. It would have been savvier to let the report speak for itself. They might have simply let the Saudis digest the U.S. spy agencies’ findings and consider the consequences for their crucial relationship with Washington. Instead, Tony Blinken took to the State Department’s lectern last week, to justify why the administration imposed no specific sanction, financial or otherwise, on MBS for his role.
It felt as if the Biden administration was prioritizing American corporate interests linked to Saudi Arabia.
Blinken’s comments diluted the prior rebuke. It was a meandering briefing about why Biden wants to “recalibrate [the U.S.-Saudi relationship] to be more in line with our interests and our values.” But Blinken did not explicitly define those interests—or, more importantly, those values.
Saudi activists and Middle East analysts say that Biden has given Mohammed bin Salman an undeserved second chance. As long as U.S. businesses are willing to work with the crown prince, there will be no shift in his behavior.
“This message is very much wasted,” said Hala Aldosari, a Saudi activist and researcher based in the U.S. “He is not fit for office at all, and he is not going to change unless a serious constraint to power is placed. Naming and shaming is not enough.”
The sanctions on 76 people involved in the Khashoggi assassination will not affect the man at the top who holds ultimate responsibility for the killing, let alone King Salman himself, who has given the 35-year-old MBS far too much responsibility.
It felt as if the Biden administration was prioritizing American corporate interests linked to Saudi Arabia.
Then came the news that the boutique Washington consulting firm that Blinken had established with other Bidenworld operators, WestExec Advisors, would partner with an even bigger powerhouse, Teneo. Its investment in WestExec, making Teneo “a significant minority shareholder in the business,” seems to correspond with Blinken’s divestment. (“There is no relationship between the two,” a WestExec spokesperson said; Teneo did not immediately respond to the Prospect.) Blinken valued his equity in the firm’s venture arm to be worth up to $5 million, in addition to his stakes in other aspects of WestExec’s lucrative operations. He has up to three months to divest fully, so he will essentially benefit from Teneo’s new investment in his bespoke Washington advisory while working as America’s top diplomat.
What makes Teneo, with its 850 staff members and bipartisan roster of well-connected senior advisers, different from Blinken’s old firm is that Teneo is willing to work with anyone. It takes on foreign governments and their sovereign wealth funds as clients. Among those that Teneo represents: MBS’s most ostentatious vanity project, a $500 billion new city in the desert called NEOM.
The price to overlook the violence wrought by the Saudi crown prince: $2.9 million, or at least that’s how much Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has paid Teneo since 2019. Ten months after MBS ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Teneo co-founder Doug Band, a former aide to Bill Clinton, registered as a foreign agent to support Saudi Arabia. He renewed the contract in October 2020, around the second anniversary of Khashoggi’s death. Teneo would “Promote the vision and accomplishments of NEOM” through “influencer engagement.” And who is more influential than Biden’s inner circle?
One aspect that has been particularly infuriating is the number of powerful voices in the media that offer unbridled support to Saudi Arabia. The New York Times quoted former diplomat (and WestExec consultant) Dennis Ross saying of the Biden administration’s decision on the Khashoggi case, “This is the classic example of where you have to balance your values and your interests.” But wouldn’t letting a Saudi leader get off scot-free for murdering a journalist upturn both American interests and values? It’s incredible that Ross is still quoted so widely, even after Trump operative Elliott Broidy paid him $10,000 as part of a pro-MBS influence campaign; Ross later returned the money but has not recanted his cheerleading for the prince.
Similarly, Meghan O’Sullivan, a Harvard professor, former Bush official, and WestExec consultant, encourages “a cooperative relationship with Saudi Arabia, which could otherwise choose to be a spoiler to U.S. and international efforts.” But Saudi Arabia has already played spoiler. The worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world—six years of mass murder in Yemen—is MBS’s sole responsibility. Add to that the kidnapping of the Lebanese prime minister and the dragnet on businessmen, intellectuals, religious leaders, and activists in Saudi Arabia—just about any potential power center that could pose a threat to the crown prince’s authoritarian rule.
What these analysts miss is that embracing the status quo and empowering MBS comes with its own set of risks. By letting Mohammed bin Salman carry on without being personally liable for Khashoggi’s killing, the Biden administration has signaled that there is nothing new to be done in the Middle East. It suggests that the Biden administration is supportive of MBS’s consolidation of power. How demoralizing to see U.S. leverage thrown away.
Imagine, for example, if the crown prince were not able to conduct business with U.S. companies. “If Saudi Arabia realizes that Mohammed bin Salman could affect foreign investment—this is something that would be very powerful and impactful,” Hala Aldosari, the Saudi activist, told me.
Blinken, through his former firm WestExec, advised Blackstone, Boeing, SoftBank, and Uber, among many other global corporations that have major business interests in Saudi Arabia. WestExec has pledged not to work for foreign governments and sovereign wealth funds, but the distinctions are perhaps moot. Teneo has, and Teneo will. And Blinken will indirectly, personally benefit from this relationship. “Business will continue to shield Mohammed bin Salman from any political consequences for serious violations,” Aldosari told me. And the Biden administration, it seems, will chip in, too.
