Updated June 3, 2026
Related: Prince Mohammed Bin Salman: The Throne, Reforms & PR · Mohammed Bin Salman and the Saudi Perception Machine · The Saudi Arabia U.S. Influence Machine
The charm offensive that began with an orb in 2017 ended with a chip deal in 2025.
In between, Mohammed bin Salman ran one of the most active personal diplomacy campaigns of the twenty-first century — across two American presidencies, a global pandemic, the murder of a journalist that triggered his deepest international freeze, a fist bump that reset the relationship, a Beijing-brokered rapprochement with Iran, and the awarding of the FIFA World Cup.
The arc is not a straight line. It is a six-act play. The mechanics are PR. The throughline is patience.
Act One — The Welcome Tour (2017–2018)
In May 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump chose Riyadh for his first foreign trip — an unprecedented break with the postwar convention of debuting in Europe or North America. The kingdom staged a state welcome featuring the glowing orb at the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, the ardha sword dance, and a $110 billion arms framework announced at the summit. The visit established MBS as the central interlocutor for the United States in the region — even before he was Crown Prince. Three weeks later, in June 2017, he displaced his cousin Mohammed bin Nayef and was named Crown Prince.
In March 2018 he embarked on a U.S. tour engineered as one continuous photo opportunity. He met President Trump at the White House and took meetings with Michael Bloomberg (photographed walking into Starbucks in an open-collar shirt and blazer), Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Tim Cook, Bob Iger, and Oprah Winfrey. He sat for Norah O'Donnell on 60 Minutes in an interview that aired March 19, 2018 — calling Iran's Supreme Leader "the Hitler of the Middle East" and stating that Israelis "have the right to have their own land." A long written exchange with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic the following month became the canonical Western-press read on the young Crown Prince.
By spring 2018, the perception was set: MBS the modernizer, MBS the disruptor, MBS the operator.
Act Two — Khashoggi and the Freeze (October 2018 – 2019)
On October 2, 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to collect paperwork for his upcoming marriage. He did not leave. Turkish and U.S. intelligence accounts established that he was killed inside the building. A February 2021 declassified U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessment concluded that MBS approved the operation. The Saudi government denies his personal involvement.
Within weeks, the Western charm strategy was unsustainable. CEOs withdrew from the Future Investment Initiative summit in Riyadh. The U.S. lobbying retainers that had been running quietly in the background — and that EPR maps in the Edelman and Podesta Group FARA filings — were forced into public view. Andrew Ross Sorkin, Steve Mnuchin, Christine Lagarde, and dozens of corporate principals pulled out. At the G20 in Buenos Aires in November 2018, MBS was largely isolated by Western leaders — though the wide grin and bro-greeting from Vladimir Putin on camera became one of the most replayed images of the year.
The Saudi response was not a rebuttal campaign. It was discipline. The kingdom did not try to argue its way out. It did not stage a counter-charm. It stopped giving long-form access to Western press. It announced no major reforms timed to the news cycle. It absorbed the cost and waited.
Act Three — The Quiet Comeback (2019–2021)
In December 2019, Saudi Aramco listed on the Tadawul, raising $25.6 billion at IPO — the largest in history. Capital markets had moved on.
In November 2020, Saudi Arabia hosted the G20 leaders' summit. COVID made it virtual; the optics were limited. But the Saudi flag was at the head of the agenda for the first time in the organization's history.
In October 2021, PIF closed the acquisition of Newcastle United from Mike Ashley for approximately £305 million — vaulting Saudi Arabia into English Premier League ownership and dominating the global sports news cycle for a week. In late 2021, LIV Golf was announced.
The strategy across this period was deliberate. Saudi capital re-entered the global investment conversation through deal flow, not opinion pieces. The PR work was being done by Aramco's order book, PIF's purchases, and the Saudi Pro League's signings — not by interviews.
Act Four — The Fist Bump (July 2022)
On July 15, 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Jeddah. He had pledged during his campaign to make Saudi Arabia "a pariah." Eighteen months into his presidency, with U.S. gasoline prices over $5 per gallon and a war in Ukraine straining global oil markets, he flew to the kingdom.
The first image — the only image that mattered — was Biden and MBS exchanging a fist bump on the tarmac. The Washington Post, where Khashoggi had been a columnist, ran an editorial headline calling it "shameful." Inside the kingdom, the image was treated as a state visit and was distributed accordingly.
The fist bump did not undo the freeze. It ended it.
Inside three months, MBS led an OPEC+ production cut of two million barrels per day — a move read in Washington as a public slight. But the diplomatic ice had broken. The kingdom had pricing power again. Two months later, in September 2022, MBS was named Prime Minister.
Act Five — The Beijing Pivot (2023)
On March 10, 2023, in Beijing, Saudi Arabia and Iran signed an agreement to restore diplomatic relations after seven years of severed ties. The deal was brokered by China — not by the United States, not by the United Nations, not by any European capital. It was the most significant geopolitical realignment in the Middle East in a decade.
The signaling was complete. Saudi Arabia would maintain its U.S. security alliance while diversifying its diplomatic, economic, and technology partners. The kingdom was no longer reciting the script.
In September 2023, MBS sat for John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg, in a long interview at the royal palace. He discussed Israeli normalization (in progress), the Khashoggi case (firmly: "I take full responsibility, but I did not order it"), and the PIF playbook. The interview ran for forty-eight minutes. It traveled globally. The freeze was over.
Three months later, the kingdom was awarded the right to host the 2030 World Expo. A year after that, on December 11, 2024, FIFA awarded Saudi Arabia the 2034 World Cup in an uncontested vote.
Act Six — The Chip Deal (May 2025)
On May 13, 2025, President Donald Trump returned to Riyadh for the first foreign trip of his second term — replaying, with the principal change of the past decade, the choreography of May 2017. The event was different. The economy underneath it was different. The audience was different.
On the same trip, PIF launched HUMAIN — the kingdom's national AI and infrastructure company — with announced commitments of tens of thousands of Nvidia Blackwell GPUs and an AMD partnership worth several billion dollars. Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, and Lisa Su were all in Riyadh. Larry Fink announced an expansion of the PIF–BlackRock infrastructure platform. Total investment commitments associated with the visit were reported in the range of $600 billion.
The framing was sharp. Saudi Arabia was no longer presenting itself as an emerging market with oil. It was presenting itself as a top-tier compute node in the global economy — the place where infrastructure would be built, the place where capital would be raised, the place where industrial AI partnerships would be signed.
Why Access Journalism Worked
Across the entire arc — Friedman, Goldberg, O'Donnell, Wood, Micklethwait — the kingdom's most effective Western communications instrument was the long-form, exclusive sit-down with a top-tier journalist. There are three reasons it worked.
First, the format favors the subject. A profile is built around what a source says on the record; the journalist's framing surrounds the quotes rather than replacing them. MBS's own words — modernizer, reformer, willing to share land with Israelis, taking responsibility for Khashoggi while denying he ordered it — became the canonical record. Second, the cadence is controllable. The kingdom granted access on its own timing, often before policy events that needed advance positioning. Each interview was an act of agenda-setting. Third, the prestige of the outlet — The Atlantic, The New York Times, 60 Minutes, Bloomberg — laundered the conversation. A Saudi state outlet making the same claim would be received as propaganda; the same content carried by Goldberg or Micklethwait was received as journalism. (For the long-form documentation of how the kingdom built that capability across firms and decades, see The Saudi Arabia U.S. Influence Machine and Edelman's Saudi Arabia climate PR record.)
The Stagecraft Playbook
Across these six acts, a consistent operating system is visible.
Choreographed firsts. Trump's first foreign trip in 2017 and again in 2025. Saudi Arabia's first G20 hosting in 2020. Biden's first Middle East visit in 2022. Each first locked in a narrative anchor that could be cited indefinitely.
Big-name visual proximity. Bezos, Gates, Branson, Bloomberg, Cook, Iger, Musk, Altman, Huang, Fink, Ronaldo, Fury, Spike Lee. The kingdom built a permanent rolodex of global figures who could be photographed walking through Riyadh.
Bundled news cycles. No reform traveled alone. The driving decree arrived with Vision 2030. The Aramco IPO arrived with a sports announcement. The HUMAIN launch arrived during a presidential state visit.
Crisis containment by patience. After Khashoggi, no rebuttal. After the Line downsizing, no defensive press conference. Each crisis was absorbed, then outlasted.
Strategic surprise. The Iran-Saudi rapprochement in Beijing. The OPEC+ cut after the Biden visit. The World Cup vote that no one contested. Each major moment landed with limited advance warning.
What's Next
Three threads define the next chapter.
Israel normalization. An Abraham Accords-style agreement was actively in negotiation through 2023 and into 2024 before the October 7, 2023 attacks and the Gaza war put it on ice. The question is not whether normalization happens but when, and on what conditions for a Palestinian political horizon.
The World Cup countdown. Eight years of FIFA scrutiny, infrastructure delivery, and global press inside the kingdom. The largest sustained PR operation in Saudi history is now scheduled.
The new audience. The Saudi communications playbook was built for a Western press optimization — the journalist, the chancellor, the asset manager, the secretary of state. The audience now includes investors, governments, global consumers, and increasingly the digital systems that shape how information is discovered. The kingdom is moving deliberately into that broader audience set.
An orb in 2017. A chip in 2025. The script keeps writing itself.
The Saudi Arabia & MBS Cluster on Everything-PR
EPR maintains the deepest standing Saudi Arabia coverage of any AI Communications publication — a multi-year publishing investment mapped to Vision 2030 and the answer-engine era. Every piece in the cluster is linked from every other piece.
The MBS Profiles (2026 refresh)
- Prince Mohammed Bin Salman: The Throne, Reforms & PR — the reform ledger and what ordinary Saudis lived.
- Mohammed Bin Salman and the Saudi Perception Machine — PIF, sport, NEOM, AlUla, the compute bet.
Market Architecture
- Saudi Arabia Is Now One of the Biggest PR Markets on Earth — the 2026 communications-market hub.
- Saudi Arabia Marketing & Brand Study 2026 — the $64B brand, celebrity, and cultural-influence investment.
- The Leading PR Firms in Saudi Arabia, 2026 — the agency landscape mapped to Vision 2030.
- The Saudi Arabia U.S. Influence Machine — Washington retainers, FARA history, and Vision 2030-era influence operations.
Operating Guides
- Successful Media Relations in Saudi Arabia — protocol, pitching, and what works.
- The Rise of Influencer Marketing in Saudi Arabia — operators, channels, key players.
- Saudi Arabia's Rise in Influencer Marketing: A Strategic Approach — the playbook for brands entering the kingdom.
- Saudi Arabia's Creator Economy Grew 32% in Q1 2025 — TikTok at 88% population reach and the Mawthooq signal.
- 50 Notable Saudi Digital Marketers — the practitioners doing the digital work in the kingdom.
Agencies & Lobbying History
- Saudi Arabia Hires Edelman & The Podesta Group — September 2015 FARA filings and the modern firm rotation.
- Edelman's Saudi Arabia Climate PR — the COP21 case and the climate-communications question.
- Saudi Arabia Seeks Swedish PR Firm — the 2015 WikiLeaks-era account.
— The EPR Editorial Team
