Here are the apps you use every day that are backed by Saudi money
With the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the world’s eyes are turned to Saudi Arabia and its ruling royal family, who are suspected of ordering his assassination earlier this month.
Beyond its strong ties to the United States government, Saudi Arabia’s oil riches have allowed the country to invest in Japanese conglomerate SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which has recently created a revolution in Silicon Valley startup funding. The Saudis already invested $45 billion in the $100 billion fund, and plan to double that amount, announced crown prince Mohammed bin Salman just earlier this month, in an interview with Bloomberg (paywall).
As others have pointed out (paywall), Saudi Arabia’s allies in the West, and the companies it invests in, have all but ignored the country’s record of human rights abuses and its contributions to climate change. But Khashoggi’s disappearance seems to be different, and is already creating tension between the Saudi funders and their Silicon Valley recipients. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has pulled out, for example, from the Future Investment Initiative, a key conference to be hosted by the Saudis later this month.
SoftBank became the largest shareholder in Uber earlier this year. Here’s a likely non-exhaustive list of companies that SoftBank’s Vision Fund has backed, per Recode’s tally in June.
Popular apps
Uber: ride-sharing
E-commerce
Flipkart: India’s largest e-commerce marketplace
Hardware
ARM Holdings: chipmaker
Software
Brain Corp.: software developer for robots used in retail
Transportation
GM Cruise: driverless cars
Health
Ping An Healthcare and Technology: Chinese online medical platform
Other
OneWeb: satellite internet provider