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Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud, known as MBS, is the future king of Saudi Arabia.
The 34-year-old heir will ascend to the throne after the death of his father, 83-year-old King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Prince Mohammed is known for his lavish spending. He has bought a $500 million yacht, a $300 million French chateau, and a $450 million Leonardo da Vinci painting. According to one estimate, the Saudi royal family – which has about 15,000 members – is worth up to $1.4 trillion.
The royal family’s empire includes Saudi Aramco, the massive, state-owned oil company that just announced its plans to go public in December 2019.
The crown prince has become a controversial global political figure, particularly in the fall of 2018, when he faced global outcry over the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who the CIA later concluded was assassinated on the prince’s orders.
Here’s a look at the lavish – and controversial – lifestyle of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
He was born to King Salman and his third wife, Fahda bint Falah, in 1985.
He was named crown price in June 2017 after his father, King Salman, decided to remove Muhammad bin Nayef from the position.
Rumors later emerged that Mohammed bin Salman had secretly plotted to oust bin Nayef and take his place, The New York Times reported.
After graduating, he worked for several state agencies before being appointed as a special adviser to his father in 2009, who was serving as governor of Riyadh at the time.
In 2012, Prince Mohammed’s father was named crown prince after the death of Nayef bin Abdul Aziz. Three years later, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz died and the prince’s father took the throne at the age of 79.
The prince is known to be a “workaholic” who spends 18 hours of the day in his office, according to The Guardian.
But he reportedly doesn’t take criticism well.
“People who tried to say no even gently and diplomatically faced consequences,” one source from Saudi Arabia told The Guardian.
The royal wealth has been accumulated over decades of oil revenue-generated expansion.
There are about 15,000 members of the Saudi royal family, but the majority of the vast fortune is distributed among 2,000 of them, according to CNBC.
The British royal family, for comparison, is worth an estimated $88 billion.
The long-awaited IPO is likely to set records, with Saudi officials valuing the company at $2 trillion, Bloomberg reported.
The banks’ estimates have varied, with several pegging their valuations much lower. Bank of America’s valuation ranges from $1.22 trillion to $2.27 trillion, while Goldman Sachs valued Aramco at $1.6 trillion to $2.3 trillion.
Aramco announced revenue of $68 billion in the first nine months of 2019, making it the most profitable company in the world.
Foreign dignitaries and politicians are often hosted at the Al-Yamamah Palace.
During a visit from President Obama to the opulent Erga Palace, reporters spotted gold-plated Kleenex dispensers and gold chairs, according to CBS News.
The royal family is rumored to own several other lavish residences around the world, including in Switzerland, London, France, and Morocco.
He’s spent hundreds of millions on superyachts, private jets, helicopters, French chateaus, and rare paintings.
The yacht can sleep 24 guests in 15 cabins.
The prince reportedly bought the superyacht after spotting it while vacationing in the south of France.
It wasn’t until 2017 that news broke that it was the Saudi prince who had bought the Chateau Louis XIV in Louveciennes, which is located west of Paris.
The 17th-century chateau reportedly includes fountains, a sound system, lights, and air conditioning that can all be controlled by an iPhone.
The lavish property also has a wine cellar, a movie theater, and a moat with a transparent underwater chamber.
Prince Mohammed made the winning bid on da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” anonymously by phone.
The painting had been estimated to sell for around $100 million leading into the auction.
Saudi Arabia has faced criticism for human rights abuses and repressive laws, such as the one that says all Saudi women must have a male guardian.
In February 2019, INSIDER published an investigation detailing how a Saudi app called Absher allows men in Saudi Arabia to track and control where women travel. The reporting prompted Apple CEO Tim Cook to launch an investigation into the app, which is sold on the App Store.
In the fall of 2017, the crown prince was reportedly behind a corruption crackdown that saw more than 200 people arrested and some detained for weeks in a Ritz-Carlton hotel. Saudi Arabia reportedly use coercion and physical abuse during the interrogations.
And according to Al Jazeera, the number of executions in Saudi Arabia has been on the rise: 133 people were executed in the first eight months after MBS became crown prince.
In November 2018, the CIA concluded the journalist was assassinated on the prince’s orders.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied that the crown prince had any role in Khashoggi’s death.
The Saudis denied for weeks that Khashoggi had been killed and repeatedly changed their story. The kingdom later announced that 18 people had been arrested in connection with the killing and said in January 2019 that prosecutors would be seeking the death penalty for five suspects.
After the CIA concluded that MBS ordered the killing of Khashoggi, Trump expressed support for MBS, Al Jazeera reported in December 2018.
As Business Insider previously reported, Trump has had deep business ties with the Saudi Arabian court for more than two decades.
And Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, has reportedly pushed for closer ties with Saudi Arabia and particularly with Prince Mohammed.
Kushner and the crown prince have had a close relationship for more than two years, Business Insider’s Ellen Cranley reported.
Putin’s enthusiastic greeting of the Saudi prince at G20 came right after other world leaders had condemned Saudi Arabia for the killing of Khashoggi.
Other world leaders appeared to ignore the crown prince in a group photo at the summit.
In the spring of 2018, Prince Mohammed met with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
His west coast tour also included a stop in Seattle to meet with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund owns 5% of Uber, according to the ride-sharing company’s most recent S-1 filing. The fund is also a top investor in Softbank’s massive Vision Fund, which owns 16% of Uber as well as sizable stakes in companies like Slack, WeWork, and DoorDash.