Saudi Arabia's Massive Slush Fund Is Funneling Money to Hollywood and Silicon Valley

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The Saudi government is funneling money to Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and now to Gulf. This is a tremendously large fund. It's going to grow to $1 trillion by 2025. MBS has engaged in some pretty violent activities. During his relatively short reign as Crown Prince, he basically blackmailed many members of his royal family at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh.

The PGA Tour wanted nothing to do with a rival Saudi-funded golf tour, but like Silicon Valley and the White House, it couldn’t resist the Kingdom’s influence. A sports guy (Rick Maese of the Washington Post) and a foreign policy guy (Jonathan Guyer of Vox) explain.

This episode was produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Michael Raphael, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained

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