President Donald Trump plans to take the stage in Miami Beach on Feb. 19 to address captains of finance and tech, as well as the event’s host: Saudi Arabia’s mammoth sovereign wealth fund.
For the third year in a row, the conference, run by an organization affiliated with the Public Investment Fund, will be an opportunity for those hoping to curry favor with the gatekeepers to $925 billion in assets. But for the first time ever, they’ll have the U.S. president himself batting on their side.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman has promised Trump that the oil-rich kingdom would boost trade and investment into the U.S. by $600 billion over the next four years.
Trump responded by saying that isn’t enough. But the pledge has helped lure some of the wealthiest U.S. businessmen to the Florida edition of the Future Investment Initiative Priority summit, as the Saudi conference is called, in the hopes of capitalizing on increased money flows between the two nations. Trump may also try to broker a deal for the PIF to invest in his favorite sport — golf.
“Saudi Arabia and its leadership will appreciate the gesture,” said Karen Young, a senior research scholar at Columbia University. “It also underscores how President Trump measures the relationship: in transactional but also potentially mutually beneficial terms.”
Joining Trump are billionaire financier Ken Griffin as well as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and real estate titan Barry Sternlicht. Together with Uber Technologies Inc co-founder Travis Kalanick and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, the elite group of attendees is worth more than $100 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Chief executives of Uber and Oracle will also attend the event at the Faena hotel in Miami Beach, alongside PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan. Topics for discussion include whether tech companies will become more powerful than governments, mega-developments and the energy transition.
Saudi Arabia’s success snagging Trump to headline the gathering highlights the close relationship between the two and financial ties between them. The Trump Organization is planning a residential tower under its brand in Jeddah and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, counts the PIF among the Middle-East investors that have showered his private equity firm Affinity Partners with cash.
Trump now is looking to the Saudis to help convene a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a bid to end the war in Ukraine.
Despite the relative bonhomie, the relationship between the Trump administration and Saudi Arabia is not entirely harmonious. In a strongly worded statement the kingdom condemned Trump’s proposal for the residents of war-ravaged Gaza to move to Jordan and Egypt while the US transforms the area into a “Riviera” for the “world’s people.” Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will be interviewed by Kushner on Thursday.
The high-powered crowd assembled in Miami Beach underscores the importance of the kingdom economically and politically just years after the regime was mired in controversy. Past editions of FII’s events were held in the shadow of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of his native Saudi Arabia.
