Mohammed bin Salman
Based on Wikipedia: Mohammed bin Salman
The Prince Who Would Remake a Kingdom
In November 2017, some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Saudi Arabia found themselves locked inside the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh. Not as guests. As prisoners.
Princes. Billionaires. Ministers. Men who had spent decades accumulating fortunes and influence were beaten, tied to walls, denied sleep. Their interrogators wanted to know about offshore bank accounts, hidden assets, the money they had stashed in Switzerland and beyond. Some detainees were so badly injured they required hospitalization. There was no due process. No lawyers. No plea bargains.
The man who ordered this extraordinary purge was thirty-two years old. His name was Mohammed bin Salman, and he was remaking Saudi Arabia in his image—whether the kingdom's old guard liked it or not.
A Son Rises
Mohammed bin Salman—often called MbS in Western media—was born on August 31, 1985, the eldest child of Prince Salman's third wife, Fahda bint Falah Al Hithlain. His father was then one of many princes in the sprawling House of Saud, the royal family that has ruled Saudi Arabia since its founding in 1932 by Ibn Saud, Mohammed's great-grandfather.
The House of Saud is enormous. Ibn Saud had dozens of sons, and those sons had sons, and those sons had still more sons. By some estimates, there are thousands of princes in Saudi Arabia today. In this crowded field, Mohammed was far from first in line to rule anything.
He studied law at King Saud University in Riyadh, graduating second in his class. After university, he worked briefly in the private sector before becoming an aide to his father in 2009, when the elder Salman was governor of Riyadh Province. Mohammed was twenty-four.
What happened next was a series of fortunate deaths—fortunate, at least, for the ambitious young prince.
In October 2011, Crown Prince Sultan died. Mohammed's father became minister of defense and moved closer to power. In June 2012, Crown Prince Nayef died. Mohammed's father became the new crown prince, first in line to the throne. With each step his father took upward, Mohammed followed, accumulating titles and responsibilities that would have seemed unimaginable just years earlier.
War at Twenty-Nine
When King Abdullah died in January 2015, Salman became king. Mohammed, just twenty-nine, was appointed minister of defense.
His first major test came almost immediately.
Yemen, Saudi Arabia's impoverished southern neighbor, had been sliding into chaos for years. By late 2014, Houthi rebels—a Shia Muslim movement with ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia's great regional rival—had seized control of the capital, Sana'a. The Yemeni president and his cabinet resigned and fled.
Mohammed saw an opportunity. In March 2015, he mobilized a coalition of Gulf states to intervene militarily, launching airstrikes against the Houthis and imposing a naval blockade. He expected a quick victory that would restore the Yemeni government and demonstrate Saudi Arabia's regional power.
He was wrong.
The Yemen war became a grinding conflict that, as of this writing, has killed hundreds of thousands of people through violence, famine, and disease. International observers have documented war crimes on multiple sides. The Houthis remain undefeated. What Mohammed envisioned as a swift demonstration of strength became an open wound.
The war also revealed something about Mohammed's leadership style. He had launched the intervention without fully coordinating with other Saudi security services. The head of the Saudi National Guard, who was out of the country at the time, learned about the operation after the fact. Mohammed was willing to move fast and break things—including the traditional Saudi approach of building consensus before acting.
The Leap to Crown Prince
In April 2015, King Salman appointed his nephew Muhammad bin Nayef as crown prince—the heir to the throne. Mohammed bin Salman was named deputy crown prince. He was next in line, but there was someone ahead of him.
Not for long.
On June 21, 2017, King Salman deposed his nephew and made his own son the crown prince. The German intelligence service had predicted this move eighteen months earlier, though the German government had publicly rebuked the prediction as speculation.
Mohammed was now heir to one of the world's most powerful thrones. He was thirty-one.
That same day, President Donald Trump called to congratulate him. The two men discussed cutting off support for terrorism, the diplomatic dispute with Qatar, and prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. A new era in Saudi-American relations was beginning—one built around the personal relationship between an unconventional American president and an unconventional Saudi prince.
The Ritz-Carlton Purge
Five months after becoming crown prince, Mohammed struck against the old guard.
On November 4, 2017, Saudi authorities announced the arrests of over two hundred wealthy businessmen and princes on corruption charges. Among them was Al-Waleed bin Talal, one of the world's richest men, a major shareholder in companies like Citigroup and News Corporation, and a frequent commentator on English-language news networks. Also arrested was Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, head of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, along with dozens of ministers and military commanders.
They were taken to the Ritz-Carlton.
What followed has been called "the night of beating." Saudi agents tortured detainees to extract information about their hidden wealth. The interrogators, by some accounts, were surprisingly unsophisticated—they seemed to expect that billions of dollars would be sitting in easily accessible bank accounts, rather than tied up in complex international holdings. When they forced detainees to call their Swiss bankers and demand large transfers, the banks recognized the transactions as made under duress and blocked many of them.
The purge served multiple purposes. Officially, it was an anti-corruption campaign. Mohammed had declared that "no one will survive in a corruption case—whoever he is, even if he's a prince or a minister." Corruption was indeed a real problem in Saudi Arabia, where princes had long used their positions to extract wealth from business deals and government contracts. Ordinary Saudis had watched the elite grow richer while being told to accept austerity measures.
But the purge was also a power grab. It destroyed the faction loyal to the late King Abdullah. It gave Mohammed control over all three branches of the Saudi security forces. It sent an unmistakable message to every remaining prince and businessman: there is only one center of power now, and it belongs to Mohammed bin Salman.
By the time the Anti-Corruption Committee declared its work complete in January 2019, some five hundred people had been detained. Saudi banks had frozen over two thousand domestic accounts. The government claimed to have identified assets worth up to eight hundred billion dollars linked to corruption.
Reform and Repression
Here is the paradox of Mohammed bin Salman: he is simultaneously a liberalizer and an authoritarian, a reformer and a tyrant.
On the reform side, he has done things that would have seemed impossible in Saudi Arabia just a decade ago. In 2018, women were finally allowed to drive—a right so basic that its absence had made Saudi Arabia notorious worldwide. He has curtailed the power of the religious police, the notorious enforcers of Wahhabism who once patrolled shopping malls looking for violations of strict Islamic codes. He has opened cinemas, allowed concerts, and promoted entertainment as part of his Vision 2030 program to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil.
Wahhabism, for those unfamiliar, is an ultraconservative interpretation of Sunni Islam that originated in Saudi Arabia in the eighteenth century. For decades, it defined Saudi society: women could not drive or travel without male permission, genders were strictly segregated, entertainment was severely restricted, and the religious police enforced these rules with impunity. Mohammed has deliberately weakened this system.
He has also pursued ambitious economic projects. Vision 2030 aims to transform Saudi Arabia into a diversified economy less dependent on oil revenues. The centerpiece is Neom, a planned futuristic city in the desert that Mohammed envisions as a hub for technology and tourism. Critics call it a fantasy; supporters call it bold thinking.
But here is the other side of Mohammed bin Salman.
His government imprisons human rights activists—including women's rights activists who campaigned for the very reforms he later implemented. Some have reportedly been tortured. Citizens have been arrested for social media posts criticizing government policies. Journalists and former insiders who displease the regime have been targeted even when they flee abroad.
The most infamous case is Jamal Khashoggi.
The Khashoggi Murder
Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist who had been an insider—he had advised the Saudi government and had access to the highest levels of power. But he became increasingly critical of Mohammed bin Salman's direction and eventually left Saudi Arabia, writing a column for The Washington Post that often criticized the crown prince's policies.
On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to obtain documents for his upcoming marriage. He never came out.
Turkish intelligence had bugged the consulate. The recordings revealed that Khashoggi had been killed and dismembered by a team of Saudi agents who had flown in specifically for the operation. The killing was brutal, premeditated, and carried out by people with direct ties to Mohammed bin Salman's inner circle.
The Saudi government initially denied any involvement, then claimed Khashoggi had died in a fistfight, then admitted he had been killed but called it a rogue operation unsanctioned by leadership. Few believed these explanations.
In 2021, the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report concluding that Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the assassination. The intelligence assessment was unambiguous: the crown prince had approved an operation to capture or kill Jamal Khashoggi.
Mohammed has denied ordering the killing. But the evidence, and the judgment of American intelligence agencies, says otherwise.
The Nature of the Regime
Understanding Mohammed bin Salman requires understanding what Saudi Arabia is: an absolute monarchy where the royal family holds total power, where there is no elected legislature, no independent judiciary, no free press, and no tolerance for political opposition.
This is not new. Saudi Arabia has always been an authoritarian state. But traditionally, the House of Saud governed through a system of consensus among senior princes. Major decisions were negotiated. Different factions had influence. Power was distributed, if only within the royal family.
Mohammed has centralized power to a degree unprecedented in modern Saudi history. He has sidelined rivals, imprisoned critics, and accumulated control over the military, the economy, and the state. His father, King Salman, is in his late eighties and reported to be in declining health. Mohammed already functions as the de facto ruler.
His ideology has been described as nationalist and populist—conservative in politics, liberal in economics and social issues. He champions a version of Arab nationalism that opposes Islamist movements while also opposing Iran's influence in the region. His closest international ally among Arab leaders is Mohammed bin Zayed, the ruler of Abu Dhabi and president of the United Arab Emirates, who shares his worldview.
Among Saudi Arabia's young population—and it is a very young country, with roughly two-thirds of citizens under thirty—Mohammed is genuinely popular. He represents a break from the gerontocracy that has long ruled the kingdom. He speaks to their desire for modernization, entertainment, economic opportunity. A former British ambassador observed that Mohammed "is the first prince in modern Saudi history whose constituency has not been within the royal family, it's outside it. It's been young Saudis, particularly younger Saudi men in the street."
But popularity among youth does not make him any less dangerous to those who cross him.
The View from Washington
American policy toward Saudi Arabia has long been transactional: the kingdom provides oil, purchases American weapons, and serves as a counterweight to Iran; the United States provides security guarantees and looks the other way on human rights.
Mohammed bin Salman has complicated this relationship. During the Trump administration, he found a willing partner. Trump expressed support for the Ritz-Carlton purge, tweeting that those arrested had been "milking" their country for years. The Khashoggi murder strained relations, but Trump declined to take significant action against Mohammed personally.
The Biden administration came into office promising to reassess the relationship. President Biden said during his campaign that he would make Saudi Arabia a "pariah" over the Khashoggi killing. In office, the approach softened. Oil prices, the war in Ukraine, and competition with China all pushed the United States back toward engagement with Riyadh.
Mohammed, for his part, has diversified Saudi Arabia's international relationships. The kingdom has strengthened ties with China, coordinated oil policy with Russia, and expanded relationships with emerging economies in Africa, South America, and Asia. The message is clear: Saudi Arabia has options beyond the United States.
What Comes Next
Mohammed bin Salman is, as of this writing, thirty-nine years old. If he lives a normal lifespan and succeeds his father as expected, he could rule Saudi Arabia for half a century. The decisions he makes will shape the Middle East for generations.
He has staked everything on a vision of transformation: a Saudi Arabia that is economically diversified, socially liberalized (by Gulf standards), and dominant in regional affairs. Whether this vision succeeds depends on factors ranging from the price of oil to the success of megaprojects like Neom to the stability of a system built around one man's absolute power.
The risks are substantial. Centralized power means no checks on bad decisions. The Yemen war shows what happens when Mohammed miscalculates. The Khashoggi murder shows how far he will go against perceived enemies. The torture at the Ritz-Carlton shows how he treats even the elite when they stand in his way.
Yet he also represents something new in Saudi Arabia—a willingness to challenge ossified traditions, to move at a pace unthinkable under previous rulers, to imagine a different future for a country long defined by oil and religious conservatism.
Mohammed bin Salman once told The Washington Post that without America's cultural influence, Saudi Arabia "would have ended up like North Korea." It was a revealing comment—an acknowledgment that Saudi Arabia needed to change, that isolation and rigidity led nowhere good.
Whether he is the man to lead that change, or whether his methods will ultimately doom it, remains the central question of Saudi Arabia's future.