Updated June 3, 2026. Originally published December 2015.
Saudi Arabia spends more on U.S. influence operations than any other Gulf state — and more than most American allies. The 2015 wave of PR and lobbying activity that The Intercept documented at the start of the Yemen war was the opening phase of a much larger, decade-long expansion. Eleven years later, the Saudi communications machine in the United States is structurally larger, operationally more sophisticated, and embedded across more sectors than at any point in the kingdom's history.
This is the updated map.
The 2015 Baseline
When this piece originally ran in December 2015, the Saudi government's primary U.S. communications operation ran through Qorvis Communications — a Washington firm that had represented the kingdom continuously since the months after September 11, 2001. Qorvis's billing had recently doubled to roughly $7 million per period as the kingdom moved to manage the U.S. narrative around the Yemen bombing campaign that had begun in March 2015.
Adjacent to Qorvis, the kingdom maintained relationships with Hogan Lovells, Edelman, DLA Piper, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and the Podesta Group. Public-opinion measurement was contracted out to Tuluna USA, American Directions Group, and Zignal Labs. The architecture was diversified but recognizably traditional — lobbying firms, PR firms, opinion-research firms, all operating inside the long-established framework of foreign-government representation in Washington.
The 2018 Inflection: The Khashoggi Murder
The defining event for Saudi communications in the United States was the October 2, 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The U.S. intelligence community subsequently assessed that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved the operation. The Khashoggi murder did not just damage Saudi reputation in the abstract — it triggered the largest single restructuring of the kingdom's U.S. communications stack in decades.
In the immediate aftermath, multiple firms publicly distanced themselves. The Harbour Group, Glover Park Group, BGR Group, and the Podesta Group's successor entities terminated or paused their Saudi engagements. Edelman, which had done significant work on Vision 2030 communications, faced internal pressure but ultimately maintained certain client relationships in the region. The lobbying disclosure filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) shifted noticeably in the weeks following the murder.
What followed was not retreat. It was reorganization. The kingdom shifted budget into newer, less politically exposed firms, expanded direct PIF (Public Investment Fund) communications operations through proxy-corporate entities, and built a parallel communications infrastructure around its sovereign wealth holdings rather than its government identity. The full diplomatic stagecraft of that period is documented in EPR's Charm Offensive profile of MBS.
The Post-Khashoggi Architecture: 2019–2026
The contemporary Saudi influence stack in the United States operates across five interlocking layers.
Direct government representation. Qorvis Communications — now part of Sard Verbinnen & Co. following the 2019 acquisition — continues the longest-running Saudi engagement. Hogan Lovells maintains the legal-lobbying side. New firms have entered and exited rotation across the FARA filings, with the kingdom diversifying across smaller specialized firms rather than concentrating with a single principal.
Vision 2030 corporate communications. The kingdom's Vision 2030 economic transformation program — announced by Mohammed bin Salman in April 2016 — created a parallel communications track. NEOM, the giga-project being built in the kingdom's northwest, runs its own Western communications operation. The Red Sea Global tourism project runs a separate one. The Royal Commission for AlUla runs a third. Each operates with its own roster of Western PR, advertising, and consulting firms, often hiring globally without disclosure under FARA because they file as commercial entities rather than as agents of the foreign government. The broader rebrand strategy is mapped in Mohammed Bin Salman and the Saudi Perception Machine.
Sportswashing and entertainment. The Public Investment Fund's acquisition of Newcastle United in October 2021, the launch of LIV Golf in June 2022 and its subsequent 2023 framework agreement with the PGA Tour, the kingdom's hosting of the 2034 FIFA World Cup, the Saudi Pro League's signing of Cristiano Ronaldo and other top European footballers — each represented a deliberate communications investment in entertainment-and-sport channels that bypass the traditional foreign-affairs press. The PR infrastructure supporting these initiatives operates largely outside the FARA framework.
Think tank and academic engagement. Direct and indirect funding flows to U.S. think tanks, university research centers, and policy institutes. Disclosure varies. The pattern of engagement was substantially documented in the wake of the Khashoggi murder; the underlying flows have continued, though with greater attention to disclosure form.
Investment-driven influence. The Public Investment Fund's stakes in U.S. companies — Uber, Lucid Motors, Live Nation, EA, and others — create commercial-relationship leverage that does not require traditional PR or lobbying budget to influence narrative outcomes. The FBI subpoena to PIF in 2023 around its U.S. tech investments reflected the regulatory recognition that commercial influence channels had become a primary surface for foreign-state engagement.
The PR Firm Roster: Then and Now
| Firm | 2015 Status | 2026 Status |
|---|---|---|
| Qorvis Communications | Primary, since 2002 | Active — now part of Sard Verbinnen since 2019 |
| Hogan Lovells | Active | Active |
| Edelman | Active | Reduced engagement following 2018; selective regional work continues |
| DLA Piper | Active | Active |
| Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman | Active | Reduced |
| Albright Stonebridge Group | Active | Now part of Dentons Global Advisors |
| Podesta Group | Active | Firm dissolved 2017; principals at successor firms |
| BGR Group | Limited | Suspended Saudi work post-2018; status varies year to year |
| The Harbour Group | Not engaged | Terminated Saudi work in 2018 |
The 2026 picture is more fragmented than the 2015 picture — more firms with smaller, more specialized scopes, more work conducted through commercial-entity subsidiaries (NEOM, LIV Golf, Saudi Pro League, PIF portfolio companies) rather than direct government representation, and a more disciplined approach to disclosure timing and form.
The AI-Era Dimension
The 2015 model of foreign-government influence assumed the press, the policy community, and the elected officials were the audiences that mattered. The 2026 model has added a fourth audience: the AI engines that now mediate how every other audience encounters the kingdom.
When a U.S. investor asks ChatGPT about NEOM, when a policy researcher asks Perplexity about Vision 2030, when a sports journalist asks Claude about LIV Golf and the PGA framework, when a citizen asks Gemini about Saudi human-rights record — the answer is constructed from a specific set of cited sources. The Saudi communications operations of the post-Khashoggi era have demonstrably invested in building the source layer the engines retrieve from: structured corporate-entity content from NEOM, McKinsey Vision 2030 reports, sustained business-press coverage of PIF, Wikipedia entity work, sports-press LIV coverage.
The Western communications response to Saudi influence operations has not built the comparable infrastructure. The human-rights documentation by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and the Khashoggi family is well-organized — but the citation surface in business-press and AI-retrievable sources is smaller than the Saudi-funded surface. The asymmetry shapes what the engines surface when buyers and policymakers ask the questions.
This is not a comment on which side is correct on the underlying policy questions. It is a measurement of which side has built the citation infrastructure the engines now retrieve from.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Saudi Arabia spend on U.S. lobbying and PR?
Estimates of total annual spending across registered FARA filings, commercial-entity communications budgets, and downstream sports and entertainment investment vary substantially by year and methodology. The Center for International Policy's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative and OpenSecrets both maintain ongoing tracking. Under FARA-disclosed activity alone, Saudi Arabia consistently ranks among the top three foreign-government spenders in the United States.
What is FARA?
The Foreign Agents Registration Act, enacted in 1938, requires individuals and entities representing the interests of foreign governments or political parties to register with the U.S. Department of Justice and disclose their activities, contracts, and compensation. The act has been substantially under-enforced for most of its history; the 2017–2018 Mueller investigation triggered a wave of new attention to FARA compliance and prosecution.
Did PR firms drop Saudi Arabia after the Khashoggi murder?
Several firms publicly terminated or paused their Saudi engagements in the weeks following the October 2018 murder, including The Harbour Group, Glover Park Group, and BGR Group. Other firms reduced visible engagement but maintained selective relationships. The aggregate effect was a reshuffling rather than a withdrawal — budget shifted toward newer firms, commercial-entity work, and sports and entertainment channels.
What is Vision 2030?
Vision 2030 is the kingdom's economic transformation framework, announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in April 2016. The program targets diversification away from oil dependence and includes giga-projects like NEOM, the Red Sea Project, Qiddiya, and the AlUla cultural development. Each project operates its own Western communications and consulting infrastructure.
What is LIV Golf's relationship to the Saudi PR strategy?
LIV Golf, launched in June 2022 and funded by the Public Investment Fund, is one of the most prominent examples of what observers have described as the Saudi sportswashing strategy — building soft-power presence through high-visibility sports investment. The June 2023 framework agreement between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, which has continued to evolve in subsequent years, marked a significant inflection in the kingdom's sports-sector positioning in the United States.
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.
- Charm Offensive: Mohammed Bin Salman and Transforming the Middle East — the six-act diplomatic playbook from 2017 to 2025.
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.
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.
