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- A slew of business and tech execs are scheduled to speak at Tuesday’s Saudi-US Investment Forum.
- The forum will focus on a range of issues, from AI, to energy, to manufacturing.
- Tuesday’s forum coincides with Trump’s crucial visit to Saudi Arabia.
As President Donald Trump embarks on the first international trip of his second term, a small crowd of Wall Street and Silicon Valley executives are also jetting off to Saudi Arabia.
On Tuesday, executives from companies like Google, Nvidia, and BlackRock are scheduled to speak at the Saudi-US Investment Forum, according to the event’s website. The forum will cover a range of topics — AI, energy, defense, and manufacturing, to name a few — and host some of the kingdom’s power brokers.
Investment is top of mind beyond Tuesday’s conference: Trump has said he wants to secure $1 trillion worth of deals during his trip to the gulf, multiple outlets reported.
Here are some of the biggest names scheduled to take the stage. Representatives for the Saudi-US Investment Forum did not respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.
Andy Jassy, Amazon
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is listed as a featured speaker as Saudi Arabia is working to establish itself as a global AI leader. Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud business, has committed to investing more than $5.3 billion in Saudi Arabia in the coming years to build data centers for the computing power needed to run AI models.
Alex Karp, Palantir
The Palantir CEO is scheduled to speak at the conference, and has recently credited a pro-defense tech wave for solid first quarter performance. Alex Karp said on a recent earnings call that part of Palantir’s success had to do with “an unvarnished cacophony of the combination of 20 years of investment and a massive cultural shift in the US.”
Elon Musk
Elon Musk is listed as a speaker, just a few months after Tesla announced it will be entering the Saudi market. The world’s richest man has previously had a somewhat rocky relationship with Saudi Arabia over unsuccessful business deals.
Larry Fink
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, launched an investment firm in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last year, and CEO Larry Fink stressed the firm’s global reach on a recent earnings call. He was once a leading voice on issues like ESG and DEI, but the firm’s recent annual letter didn’t mention either issue. Instead, Fink wrote in it that BlackRock is now betting big on the private market.
David Sacks
Trump’s AI and crypto czar is among the White House officials scheduled to speak. On Sunday evening, David Sacks posted about arriving in the Middle East on X, saying that America needs to be the “partner-of-choice” when it comes to AI, and that “effective AI diplomacy is vital now more than ever.”
Jensen Huang
Representatives from Nvidia spoke at this year’s Global AI Summit, hosted in Saudi Arabia, and now CEO Jensen Huang is set to represent the chips giant at Tuesday’s conference. A top Saudi AI official told CNBC in September that the country hoped to get access to Nvidia’s high-performance chips within the year. Groq, a semiconductor startup and potential competitor to Nvidia, announced that it has gotten a $1.5 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to expand the delivery of its AI chips.
Jane Fraser
Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser is among the Wall Street leaders slated to speak. She also spoke at Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative in October.
Stephen Schwarzman
Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, also spoke at Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative ahead of the presidential election and said he thought that Trump would be a better president the second time around. Last year, the billionaire said he wants Blackstone to become the “largest financial investor” in global AI infrastructure.
Kelly Ortberg, Boeing
Boeing has had a relationship with Saudi Arabia since the 1940s, according to its website. Though CEO Kelly Ortberg is scheduled to speak in Saudi Arabia, Boeing has made headlines related to a different country in the Middle East, after multiple outlets reported that the Qatari royal family plans to give the Trump administration a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet to be used as Air Force One. The plane is worth a staggering $400 million and has been criticized by figures on both political parties for potential conflicts of interest.
Ruth Porat, Alphabet and Google
Ruth Porat, President and Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet, is scheduled to speak, and Google has made recent investments in Saudi Arabia. In 2024, the company announced that it was opening an AI hub in Saudi Arabia, and a 2025 partnership between Accenture and Google Cloud seeks to further generative AI capacities in the country.
Arvind Krishna, IBM
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna recently announced a new slate of AI products from IBM as the company seeks to grow its generative AI business. In February, IBM announced it was expanding its AI efforts in Saudi Arabia and the company opened regional headquarters in the country last year.
Omeed Malik, Founder and President of 1789 capital
Omeed Malik founder and president of 1789 Capital, a VC firm that counts Donald Trump Jr. among its partners. He recently started a private club in Washington, DC, that caters to the MAGA social scene once co-hosted a Trump fundraiser that raised upwards of $10 million. 1789 Capital invests in energy and software, among other industries, and it bills itself as anti-ESG. Instead, it focuses on “EIG” — entrepreneurship, innovation, and growth.
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