Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s controversial crown prince, pressured his country to acquire stakes in three major video game publishers. Recently seen by show that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which Bin Salman chairs, bought more than $ 3.3 billion in shares of Activision-Blizzard, EA and Take-Two. This is the same fund that bought a big one in Uber in 2016.
In all, it bought 14.9 million shares of Activision, 7.4 million shares of EA and 3.9 million shares of Take-Two towards the end of last year. These investments give the Public Investment Fund, or PIF, $ 1.4 billion, $ 1.1 billion, and $ 826 million in shares in these companies, in an attempt to reduce Saudi Arabia’s dependence on oil.
Notably, this is not the first time that Bin Salman has invested in video games – or at least tried to do so. Last year, Riot’s (LEC) announced a partnership with Neom of Saudi Arabia, a smart city project that divides the prince. Less than a day later, Riot canceled the sponsorship deal after the LoL professional community spoke out against him. That same year, Bin Salman’s MiSK youth charity bought one from SNK, the Japanese , and said he plans to take control of the company in the future.
In 2018, the CIA implicated Bin Salman in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Although Saudi Arabia initially denied any knowledge of the murder, Shalaan al-Shalaan, the country’s assistant public prosecutor, later said that the murder was ordered by the head of a “negotiating team” sent to bring Khashoggi back to the country.