Elon Musk has been officially listed as an invited attendee at a high-stakes Saudi-US investment forum set to take place in Riyadh this Tuesday, according to internal planning documents reviewed by Reuters. The forum coincides with U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East visit and is expected to deliver headline-grabbing economic announcements.
Musk is joined on the invitation list by the CEOs of global heavyweights including BlackRock, Boeing, Citigroup, IBM, Delta Airlines, American Airlines, and United Airlines—signaling the forum’s scale and ambition.
The event is being framed as a symbol of renewed U.S.-Saudi cooperation under Trump’s second term, with Riyadh expected to commit vast investments into the American economy. Trump previously urged Saudi Arabia to inject more than $1 trillion into the U.S. over four years, including a $100+ billion arms deal that is reportedly in the works.
Tesla’s formal launch in Saudi Arabia in April—after years of frosty relations—marks a key shift in Musk’s relationship with the Kingdom. The rift began in 2018 after Musk’s failed attempt to take Tesla private with claimed support from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. That fracture now appears to be mended, with Riyadh welcoming Musk’s return amid a broader realignment between U.S. corporate elites and Gulf capital.
Musk’s rising political profile—now a senior figure in the Trump administration and a key architect of the president’s deregulation agenda—has further strengthened his ties with Saudi power brokers eager to embed themselves deeper in Washington’s new economic order.
With Trump reshaping U.S. foreign and economic policy around strategic alliances and transactional diplomacy, Riyadh’s courtship of Musk and America’s corporate elite reflects a bold bid to lock in influence—and dollars—for the long term. The Riyadh forum may well become a defining moment in this new axis of power.
