The crown jewel of Vision 2030. It is in trouble. Suspended.
Pushed out until after 2030 anyway.
NEOM. You know it. That sprawling collection of tech dreams in the northwest. Includes The Line. Oxagon. Trojena. Red Sea resorts. But the money keeps burning. The twin-mirrored skyscraper? They are reworking the design. Trying to cut costs. Because the price tag keeps exploding.
Originally they thought NEOM would cost $500 billion a whole. Then came the realization. The Line alone? Over $1 trillion. Some estimates go wild, hitting $8.8 trillion when you add everything. It’s not just expensive. It is unbuildable as planned.
The other parts suffer too. Trojena gets no new money until after the decade turns. Neither do the coastal tourism spots.
So what about the airline?
Riyadh Air isn’t trying to out-Dubai with skyscrapers. They are building an airline. Real one. Aiming to hit over 100 global destinations. A fleet of 60 A321neos. 25 A350s. 39 Dreamliners.
It’s new. Mostly. Only flying to London so far. Delta is on board as a partner. The plane is just lifting off when the ground underneath shifts.
Saudi Arabia is tightening its belt on grand projects. Cutting the flow to things that look good on paper but cost a fortune to keep alive. They are freeing up cash, sure. Maybe for the airline? Or maybe just because they have no choice.
The question is no longer if the vision works but who pays for the dream.
It wasn’t just an engineering problem. It was a competence gap. McKinsey advised them. PwC watched. A whole ecosystem of starchitects and consultants built a perfect grift machine. MBS wanted it. It was politically untouchable. No one could ask if a 105-mile-wide city made sense. Everyone just added features. Hidden marinas. Stadiums hanging in midair.
Did anyone question it? Probably not.
Now they face a pivot. Vision 2030 was about more than oil. Diversification. Tourism. Tech hubs. Cultural shifts too. Women driving. Getting passports. Working without asking a man for permission. That stuff sticks. It matters.
The mirrored city didn’t.
It showed a crack. A specific kind of decision-making failure. Pouring good money after bad for branding. Can they turn oil wealth into a functional economy? That’s the open wound.
They will likely scale back. Focus on what actually finishes before Expo 2030. Or the World Cup in ’34. Less mirror. More reality.
At least that is the plan.
