WEBVTT - Drilling Deep: Karen House on How Saudi Arabia Has Changed Under MBS and What Those Changes Mean for the World 0:00:01.600 --> 0:00:05.600 Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. We 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:09.360 are bringing you today another one in our Drilling Deep 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:14.040 series from Adam Lewinstein, where Adam talks to authors of 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:19.200 interesting new books on climate, or politics, or the combination thereof. 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.840 Today a conversation with Karen Elliott House, author of the 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:30.080 new book The Man Who Would Be King Mohammed Bin 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:35.559 Salman and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia. Of course, Saudi Arabia, 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:39.000 as Americans are being reminded these days, is not the 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:44.919 only increasingly authoritarian nation reliant on oil extraction, determined to 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:50.560 disrupt global climate negotiations, or obsessed with energy ravenous Ai. 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.440 But as Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and former Wall Street 0:00:55.480 --> 0:01:00.319 Journal publisher House makes clear, it is a crucial one. 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.720 House has been traveling to Saudi Arabia for more than 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.520 four decades and has borne witnessed both its power and 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:12.200 its contradictions. She spent hours interviewing the Crown Prince and 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:16.039 other Saudi officials for this book. But House also has 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:20.959 quote a number of personal friends who have literally disappeared 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:27.959 without any official explanation. She writes in June, Adam Lowenstein 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.319 spoke with House about how Saudi Arabia has changed under 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:35.759 the Crown Prince, whether MBS is gamble on economic and 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:41.440 social freedoms alongside civil and political repression, is politically or 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:47.199 environmentally sustainable, how Saudi Arabia's oil and petrochemical industries serve 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:52.480 its geopolitical interests, and why the kingdom's promises about transitioning 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:56.520 away from fossil fuels might be a bit less green 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:01.639 than climate advocates would hope. Conversation is coming up after 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:02.559 this quick break. 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:06.360 So you've been I learned in the book you've been 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.960 going to Saudi Arabia for more than four decades, and 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.080 I'm curious what originally piqued your interest about the kingdom. 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:21.320 The first time I went was in May of nineteen 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:26.200 seventy eight, and Saddad had been to Jerusalem in November 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:30.079 of seventy seven, So the Middle East was a big issue, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.840 and the foreign editor of the Wall Street Journal told me, 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.480 go see these places you're going to write about. So 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:42.959 I went to Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.639 and Saudi Arabia then was a more normal country than 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:52.079 it was for most of that forty years. When I arrived, 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:56.200 I was taken to the oil Minister's house for what 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.120 I hoped was an interview. It turned out to be 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.959 a dinner party, and so there were women all dressed 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:11.080 and bejeweled and alcohol, and we watched the World Cup 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:16.680 soccer final on you know, satellite TV. It was a 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.639 very It was the kind of event that the religious 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:25.600 police deplored. And shortly thereafter after the attack on the mccamosque, 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:30.480 of course, that kind of thing disappeared in Saudi Arabia 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:33.680 and men and women were segregated and all of the 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.000 stuff that you know that people know for most of 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:43.280 the last forty years, until King Settleman and his son 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.280 took over and took the religious police off the street. 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:51.640 Let women drive, let women work, are trying to modernize 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.560 and change the economy and the culture. 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:00.920 One of the things I've struggled to parse in terms 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.880 of what's real and what is hype, what is marketing, 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:08.520 is the scale of the transformation in Saudi Arabia over 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:11.960 the last decade. And there's been a lot of talk 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:16.679 about some of the efforts to allow women to drive, 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:21.119 to increase the availability of entertainment, to scale back the 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.120 presence of the religious police. But there's also kind of 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:29.359 a relentless fire hose of promotion, in part from a 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:33.320 lot of wealthy, self interested Western investors who would like 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:35.680 to do business with the kingdom. And so I had 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.039 a hard time understanding what is real and what is not. 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.480 But one of the main arguments of your book is that, 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.080 at least in terms of social and economic freedom, this 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:52.200 transition is real and legit and consequential. Can you talk 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:54.799 about that a little bit? Just how much the country 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.200 has changed over let's say the last decade or so. 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:04.240 Yeah, I think as I try to what interested me 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:09.360 is how where did Mohammed ben Salmon, who's now thirty 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:14.480 nine and was roughly twenty nine when he began changing 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:18.560 the kingdom? Where did he get these ideas? Because most 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:24.360 Saudis he grew up in the very conservative, heavy handed religion, 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:29.159 and that's apparently partly what motivates him to change that. 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.880 He was a young kid who you know, the only 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.840 thing he could do was play video games because there 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:41.039 was no other entertainment, which is true, there was nothing 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:44.440 really except kids could kick a soccer ball around in 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:49.600 a field of garbage here and there in town he has. 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:53.360 He is motivated. He understands that they can't live off 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.400 of oil revenue forever and that people have to be 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:05.479 motivated and educated to work. So he is determined to 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:10.279 bring more resources into the world of work. And women 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:15.280 are a major educated resource, and they're much more motivated 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.200 than most men because they haven't had the opportunity to 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.160 do anything other really than to teach school. There are 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:28.560 a few doctors here and there, but the only career 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:33.080 that was sanctioned for women really was breeding children or 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:38.040 teaching children. And he is not He has obviously set 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:44.279 back political freedom. In the days when I went there 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:49.640 under King Fahd, under King Abdullah, you weren't ever supposed 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.760 to criticize the king. But in the newspapers, you know, 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:58.040 you could read the health ministry failed at this, the 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:02.680 defense ministry failed that. I mean, you know, mild criticism, 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:09.000 and you didn't wind up in in prison. And I think, 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.960 you know, he feels that I'm doing these things fast. 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:17.440 I can't. I don't have time to have everybody telling 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:19.640 me how to do it and getting in the way. 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.960 So and I think, you know, he thinks he he 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:28.040 thinks he knows what to do. His whole philosophy is 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:32.800 that what's wrong with the world is incremental thinking. You 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:37.720 have to have out of the box thinking, and that 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:41.040 that's something. As you noticed in the last chapter of 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.520 the book leak On, you also had that the Singaporean 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:48.000 Prime Minister had that view that I'm in charge here. 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:52.040 I know I've got to drive you hard to get 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.880 you where you ought to be. But the changes are 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:03.680 truly significant. This country is still conservative, so you still 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.960 see most women wearing a bias, but you don't have to. 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:09.840 The last time I saw the Crown Prince, he said 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.600 to me, I was still wearing my black abiah when 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.080 I walked into his office, and he said, you don't 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.120 have to wear that, and I said, I know, and 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:24.480 sat down and started asking questions. But I think back 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.720 to your point about how much marketing hype there is. 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:33.160 The Crown Prince himself is a marketer. That was my 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.880 impression of him in our first meeting. He is, and 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.640 I don't mean in a kind of cheap hypey way, 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:45.680 but he is self confident and he is charismatic, and 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:50.440 he is out to convince you that, you know, here's 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:55.080 the way things are going to be, and here's what 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.880 I'm doing to get them there. I mean, he's he 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:04.240 likes to sell and he's quite effective at it, I think. Plus, 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.600 they have all this money and they hire everybody in 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.520 the world to tout what's going on in the kingdom. 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:16.400 Like Lionel Messi, the soccer player. They tried to hire 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.600 him for their soccer club. He said no, but they 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.920 pay him twenty five thousand dollars a year to promote 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.720 their attempts to get the World Cup, which they did, 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:31.360 and to promote the country's tourism business. 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.520 One of the things I found most remarkable in the 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.800 book was the fact that most Saudis had not even 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.560 heard of MBS as recently as I think twenty fifteen 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.160 and a decade later. You describe him as having pretty 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:51.720 much total control over the government over the country. He 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:56.400 chairs the Public Investment Fund. You know he's hiring Saudi Aramco. 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.320 Can you talk about how he has managed to There's 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.439 obviously lots of internal machinations in internal politics, which you 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.600 describe in detail in the book, But from a I 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:12.600 guess maintaining the consent of the governed perspective, how's he 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:16.200 maintained that that kind of absolute power over so many 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.280 aspects of the country in such a short time. 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:26.560 I think essentially in at least two ways. One, most 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.600 of the sixty percent of the country is under thirty 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:34.680 years of age, so they want change, most of them, 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.760 not all of them. Some of them are conservative, but 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:45.280 most want change. So he has offered them entertainment and jobs. 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:53.880 And for those who are less enamored, he's offered strong 0:10:54.040 --> 0:11:02.000 political suppression. Well, he, as you know, put the most 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:08.040 of the senior royals in the ritz Carlton along with 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:13.640 prominent business people, forced them to pay what he said 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.960 was ill gotten gain, and it probably was. The country 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:23.920 was a very corrupt country in under Abdullah. Most people 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:29.920 said that up to thirty percent of the budget was 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:35.120 just taken, you know, on this and that project. So 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:43.760 he tried to intimidate the royals, remove the religious police 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:49.000 from the streets, and the religious scholars who didn't agree, 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:56.760 some of them found themselves also in prison. And then 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:02.320 the old Saudi way of buying people to keep people happy. 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.360 The religious police are still paid, they're just not allowed 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.480 to go out on the street and arrest anyone. So 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:17.280 with a combination of intimidation and entertainment for the young 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:23.520 and his father obviously agrees with these things, or at 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.680 the beginning. I don't know how active is or alert 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.520 his father is now. But when he first became king, 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:36.120 he obviously supported MBS, and that was a big part 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:42.280 of his ability to consolidate control. And his father got 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.719 rid of the first crown prince and put in a 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:48.800 second one, and then got rid of that crown prince 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:54.120 and put in his son, Mohammed. So his father has 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:59.320 been instrumental in helping him consolidate power. But he has 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:05.880 the reputation of willingness to use whatever means is necessary 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:11.479 to get and retain control so that he can reform 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:16.360 and transform the country in the way he believes it 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:23.160 ought to go. But he he he uh is the emphasis. 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.600 Yeah, you mentioned leak One, you the former strong man 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:32.720 leader of Singapore, and he you compare MBS to him 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.719 a few times in the book. It was interesting. It's 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:41.840 interesting because leak One you beloved by in particular Western 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.040 executives and investors and business leaders who prize above all 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:51.040 else the freedom, the free flow of financial capital, and stability. 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.080 One way to preserve stability within a society is through 0:13:55.800 --> 0:14:02.320 autocracy and not permitting any democratic processes, any political process stifling, 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.600 you know, all kinds of political activity and criticism and dissent. 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.160 And you point out throughout the book that even as 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:12.840 these social and economic freedoms have genuinely increased within Saudi Arabia, 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:17.600 the political climate has gotten even more repressive. In your 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.160 travels there, because this is something I've written about. Lots 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.760 of Western journalists have reported on this, lots of human 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.080 rights groups doing really important work in terms of covering 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:34.080 political repression within Saudi Arabia. What is the political climate 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.480 within the country itself, among the people of Saudi Arabia. 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:44.320 You know, fundamentally, there's no history in Saudi Arabia of 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:51.560 people having any control of their lives. I mean mostly 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:55.120 these were Bedouin tribes and the chief was in charge, 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:02.360 and the social contract was keep me from starving and 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:07.520 I give you my loyalty. And that's been the social 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:12.440 contract with the Alsaoud for the three hundred roughly years 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:16.880 that they've been in charge of Saudi Arabia. So people 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:21.840 want they want government where they can count on a 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:27.480 decent life. They don't want to, you know, an enormous 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:30.160 amount of corruption. I mean, when I wrote my first book, 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:35.160 Saudi's were so upset with the royal family taking so 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:43.480 much of everything that people used to steal the sheets 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:46.040 off their hospital bed on the theory that if the 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:50.640 Royals can steal, so can I you know, just frustration 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:56.200 at the fact that they felt it was an unfair system. 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.720 They don't purport to know how to lead or want 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.280 to or want to vote on somebody. They just want 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:09.720 government that's not that's transparent and accountable. So I think 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:18.600 he has tried to provide more of that, the transparency, 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:23.440 having key performance indicators for all the ministers and tracking 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:27.240 them and publishing here's what we're trying to do, here's 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.440 what we've done, Here's what we haven't done. I mean, 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:37.400 he's he's not afraid of the report card, but you know, 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.400 he is the he is the superintendent, the principal, and 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:45.960 the star pupil, mister everything people call him because they 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:50.120 you know, he did kind of come from nowhere. I mean, 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:54.360 he was the sixth son of his father, so he 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.880 shouldn't have amounted to anything in a hierarchical society, and 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:03.320 Saudi's were kind of where did he come from? Because 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:08.600 he had he had government jobs, but they weren't prominent ones, 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.200 so people didn't know much about him, and then suddenly 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:17.880 he's reshaping the government and he's the deputy of Crown Prince, 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.040 and then he's the Crown Prance, and then he's in charge, 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:24.520 as you said, of the Public Investment Fund a RAMCO, 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:31.920 everything in the country, every entity in essence reports to him. 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:39.720 You mentioned KPIs. I get the impression that NBS personally 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:45.320 is quite interested in the prestige and the reputation of 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.200 firms like McKenzie, who played a big role in Vision 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:51.800 twenty thirty, and lots of other Western consulting firms. I've 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:54.399 written a lot about the some of the Western pr 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:58.920 firms in public affairs and lobbying shops that have secured 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:03.880 some quite new gritive contracts with the PIFF and ARAMCO 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.840 and other parts of the Saudi government. You make a 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.600 few references throughout the book to the role of foreign 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.120 consultants in the country, and I'm wondering if you could 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.959 just talk a little bit about how and why, I 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:21.720 guess these Western firms are so involved in so involved 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:25.280 in the government of Saudi Arabia under Mohammed ben Solman. 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:30.400 You know, as you've already said, the Western firms all 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.360 see Saudi Arabia as a place they can make money. 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.640 That he's trying to modernize. So you know, I'll get 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:43.840 in there. I've got ideas, and he is happy to hire. 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.080 I mean, his whole philosophy, as I say in the book, 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:52.400 is it's better to attempt a hundred things and succeed 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:57.280 at fifty than attempt five and succeed at four. You 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:02.720 know that trying to change everything is a good idea. 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:07.000 And so because of that, you know, he has a 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:14.840 reason to hire uncteen advisors consulting firms to advise on this, 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:18.719 that and the other. I mean, the the line the 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.360 big city that they're building or planning. 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.560 To build, right, important distinction. 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:29.040 It's not yes, it's not there yet. You know. They 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:35.440 they hired I guess five different architectural firms, not one, 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.800 and then they kind of put them all together, and 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.479 you know, you let the architects debate each other, and 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:49.680 then Mohammed debates with them, and then that's the that's 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:56.080 the end of the the debate. I mean, he he decides. 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.520 As somebody used to say or said to me, we 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:03.520 used to debate and never decide. Now we decide and 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:10.800 never debate, which is a kind of interesting, succinct summary. 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.320 But all those firms are there to make money in 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:19.200 because he's trying to do literally mouths thousand, let a 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:24.320 thousand flowers bloom. He's trying to let a thousand projects bloom. 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:28.080 So you know they're all rushing in to get a 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.120 piece of the money. I'm sure that you know much 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:38.000 of what they do is overcharge and underperform. But I mean, 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:40.600 the only one of these I've ever read was the 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:46.240 McKenzie Vision twenty thirty document, so, and I guess a 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:50.720 lot of that. The things proposed are really in the 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:55.360 many five year plans that the country had from nineteen 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.800 seventy on. But they produced a plan every five years 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.720 and put it on the shelf. Very little of it 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:07.200 ever got done. So probably McKenzie went back and read 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:10.720 all the five year plans. I don't know, but that 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.439 would be a good place to start, just to know 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:17.040 what's been proposed before. I don't know that they did 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.600 or didn't, but I know that the five year plans 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:27.080 mostly were put on the shelf and not execute it. 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:31.680 Yeah, you mentioned in the book the succession of five 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:36.760 year plans for transitioning the Kingdom away from relying so 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:40.280 much on oil, and how those five year plans you know, 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:43.119 like you said, have been published time and time again 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:46.760 and never nothing has fundamentally changed. I think a lot 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:50.040 of people hear about obviously, we hear about the climate crisis. 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.400 We hear about ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia playing a role 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:58.119 in global climate negotiations as kind of a baseline for 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:00.200 where we are right now. Can you talk about where 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.119 here in twenty twenty five, where the kingdom is at 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:06.840 in its reliance on oil and the scale at this 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.160 point of that reliance, and I guess where they are 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.840 in the transition that has been talked about, as you mentioned, 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:17.480 for many, many iterations of five year plans and is 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.040 obviously a big part of Vision twenty thirty. And what 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:23.200 you hear from NBS and other government officials today. 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:28.560 Well, obviously oil is still the major source of revenue. 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:34.840 It used to be about seventy eighty percent of the 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:40.080 budget revenue, forty percent of the GDP of the country. 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:46.399 The goal is to get non oil to sixty I 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:50.760 think sixty five percent of GDP, but right now it's 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:59.680 only they haven't made that much progress yet, but they are, 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:05.399 and I believe sincerely they are trying to do a 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:12.959 develop renewable energy because the Saudis are the most profligate 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.879 energy users in the world. They use like three point 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:22.000 seven million barrels a day for twenty million, thirty million people, 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:28.240 and they use much more than anybody except China and 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:34.560 the US, who have vastly, vastly greater populations. So they 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:38.160 want to have renewable energy so that they can keep 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:43.240 some of the fossil fuels to sell to the world, 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:47.840 because their oil is the cheapest in the world to produce, 0:23:48.520 --> 0:23:51.879 so when it's I think it's roughly three dollars a 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:55.240 barrel is my recollection. So when it's selling at eighty, 0:23:55.760 --> 0:24:00.760 I mean, that's that's huge profit. So they don't want 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:06.919 to run out of the ability to have oil to sell. Secondly, 0:24:07.000 --> 0:24:13.160 they're in a climate that is incredibly hot, so they 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:16.760 already have according to a rand study and one by 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:21.520 their own King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, they 0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:27.320 have ninety five days a year that are the temperatures 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:33.120 above one hundred. So it's hard to develop tourism when 0:24:33.160 --> 0:24:38.080 you have such excessively hot days, and tourism is one 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:44.240 of the industries they're trying to grow, and according to Rand, 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:48.280 there are going to be one hundred and eighty days 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:55.120 over ninety five degrees by twenty thirty, so they do 0:24:55.320 --> 0:25:01.119 need to do what they can to try to keep down. 0:25:01.320 --> 0:25:06.440 Nothing they're doing is going to meet the Paris Accords. 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:10.720 Don't have more than one point five degrees celsius rise. 0:25:10.800 --> 0:25:16.800 I mean, China's running that various others. But they do 0:25:16.880 --> 0:25:22.199 have an incentive, I think to produce as much renewable 0:25:22.400 --> 0:25:27.280 energy as they can, both to reduce the greenhouse gases 0:25:27.359 --> 0:25:33.320 they produce and to have oil that is replaced by 0:25:33.480 --> 0:25:38.359 sun and wind so they can sell it for more money. 0:25:39.600 --> 0:25:42.200 So they're producing, as I said in the book, they're 0:25:42.240 --> 0:25:49.000 putting a chip on every possible option for energy production 0:25:49.200 --> 0:25:58.320 green energy, solar, wind, and the two are not mutually incompatible. 0:25:58.440 --> 0:26:00.960 I mean, the State of text is one of the 0:26:01.040 --> 0:26:06.639 few places that has managed to reduce the role of 0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:14.600 oil and its GDP, so it is still America's largest 0:26:14.800 --> 0:26:22.320 energy producer and also America's largest the state producer of 0:26:22.520 --> 0:26:26.600 renewable energy. And I think that's exactly you know what 0:26:27.720 --> 0:26:30.760 MBS's goal is is we want to be a big 0:26:30.800 --> 0:26:34.160 producer of renewable energy, and we want to and we can. 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:36.560 We need it, we use it, and we can try 0:26:36.600 --> 0:26:39.240 to sell it. And we also want to be a 0:26:39.320 --> 0:26:43.639 major producer of oil and gas because the world is 0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:49.119 going to need it far beyond twenty thirty forty fifty, 0:26:49.240 --> 0:26:52.840 so that they have more time, they believe, to get 0:26:52.840 --> 0:26:56.760 the economy off oil, but they need to keep the 0:26:57.280 --> 0:27:02.040 ideally keep the country from being seen as too hot 0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:02.600 to visit. 0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:07.080 At one point in the book, you describe them as 0:27:07.320 --> 0:27:11.159 trying to be or striving to be the last oil 0:27:11.160 --> 0:27:16.400 producer standing. And I'm wondering, is it a fair assertion 0:27:16.560 --> 0:27:19.800 to say that they're trying to do two things simultaneously. 0:27:19.880 --> 0:27:23.920 One is reduce their own reliance on oil, while at 0:27:23.920 --> 0:27:27.120 the same time doing what they can to preserve global 0:27:27.160 --> 0:27:30.080 demand for oil as long as possible. 0:27:31.040 --> 0:27:35.960 Yeah, that's I would say that's fair. They want to 0:27:36.040 --> 0:27:40.800 reduce their own demand for oil so they can yes 0:27:41.000 --> 0:27:44.520 have it to sell to the world. As you recall 0:27:44.640 --> 0:27:50.760 in the book, Prince Abdelaziz, the energy minister, says, we 0:27:51.240 --> 0:27:54.639 have to not write off the Third world. We can't 0:27:54.720 --> 0:28:00.280 be so pure and holy about our air climate change 0:28:00.400 --> 0:28:04.960 that we in essence say the rest of the seven 0:28:05.080 --> 0:28:11.360 hundred million people who still burn sticks for heat, that's 0:28:11.400 --> 0:28:13.399 the only heat they can have. They're not going to 0:28:13.440 --> 0:28:18.760 be able to have oil because they deserve a chance 0:28:18.840 --> 0:28:23.679 to develop and burning oil is less abusive, he says, 0:28:23.880 --> 0:28:28.800 to the atmosphere than you know, burning wood. I'm not 0:28:28.840 --> 0:28:32.240 an expert on that, but you know, he's very big 0:28:32.280 --> 0:28:35.840 on the idea that you can't tell most of the 0:28:35.880 --> 0:28:39.080 world they have to stop their development right where they 0:28:39.120 --> 0:28:44.040 are because we elite Western nations don't want any more 0:28:44.320 --> 0:28:49.080 greenhouse gases released. So, I mean, it's a it's a 0:28:49.160 --> 0:28:53.960 point that Dan Jurgen makes too, the energy Guru. 0:28:54.880 --> 0:28:56.959 One thing that you talk about in the book is 0:28:57.960 --> 0:29:01.760 the some of the consequences geopolitically, but also for the 0:29:01.760 --> 0:29:05.200 purposes of this conversation from an energy and climate perspective 0:29:05.920 --> 0:29:12.560 of Saudi Arabia's growing relationship with China, particularly in petrochemicals, 0:29:12.880 --> 0:29:16.680 and you write at one point that Aramco believes the 0:29:16.720 --> 0:29:19.760 market for turning oil into chemicals will last beyond the 0:29:19.840 --> 0:29:23.400 uses of oil for gasoline. I think the oil for 0:29:23.480 --> 0:29:27.160 gasoline is what we often think of as the source 0:29:27.320 --> 0:29:29.520 of the climate crisis, at least from a day to 0:29:29.600 --> 0:29:34.000 day individual perspective, But what does it mean for this 0:29:34.120 --> 0:29:40.440 growing investment in petrochemicals, and particularly between two countries Saudi 0:29:40.480 --> 0:29:44.920 Arabia and China that are huge users and consumers of energy. 0:29:45.040 --> 0:29:50.280 Saudi Arabia I think is determined. They have a distrust 0:29:50.600 --> 0:29:56.160 of the United States from at least the Obama administration forward. 0:29:56.280 --> 0:30:00.560 But even with George w they told told him not 0:30:00.640 --> 0:30:02.800 to go into it rock and he did so. They 0:30:03.280 --> 0:30:09.200 they're nervous, and Mohammed Ben Salman wants to be a 0:30:09.240 --> 0:30:13.120 big man on the world stage, so he has to 0:30:13.120 --> 0:30:17.680 deal with Russia to control global energy prices. He deals 0:30:17.760 --> 0:30:25.320 with China because China is the biggest buyer of oil 0:30:25.640 --> 0:30:30.320 and Saudi oil as well as the Iranian oil that 0:30:30.360 --> 0:30:36.160 they're buying at cut rate prices. So I think, you know, 0:30:36.240 --> 0:30:43.000 he he wants a relationship with China. So investing in 0:30:43.080 --> 0:30:48.360 China and having China invest in Saudi is something that 0:30:48.560 --> 0:30:54.080 I think he sees as a good geopolitical investment. I 0:30:54.120 --> 0:30:58.360 don't know if it's a good energy investment. I mean, 0:30:58.400 --> 0:31:04.160