The prospect of blackmail has drawn increasing attention to the crown prince, who in recent years has emerged as both a telegenic reformer and a royal inclined to palace intrigue and vengeful schemes farther from home. The crown prince traded phone numbers with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, during a 2018 event in Los Angeles. Even amid the outcry after Khashoggi’s killing, international businesses have gone ahead with Saudi investments, though with less fanfare. “Everything will have a link with artificial intelligence, with the internet of things — everything,” the crown prince told Bloomberg in 2017 while touting Neom, a $500-billion megacity-of-the-future project. Khashoggi’s killing came nearly six months after the May 2018 hack, but by then the 60-year-old writer had been publishing caustic opinion columns for months in the newspaper.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 25, 2020 12:00 UTC