WSJ How Saudi Arabia's Neom Megacity Dream Collapsed

Neom was the centerpiece of an ambitious plan to pivot Saudi Arabia away from oil. We've talked to numerous former employees. We've looked at satellite images, we've looked at internal financial documents. It's all to find out how and why the world's largest construction project has collapsed. The centerpiece of Neom became the Line. It had over 7 billion square feet. That is more than the combined of every single building in New York City. And it would have 9 million people. Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, MBS wanted this to be like nothing the world had ever seen before. What we understand from multiple people familiar with the matter is that the country has spent well over $50 billion on Neom now and will spend more simply winding down the project. So, how did we get here? In the beginning to craft what Neom would be, they assembled a roster of top Western consultants and came up with an enormous number of ideas. We got access to a 2,000-plus page document that detailed all of these ideas. There's an artificial moon, NEOM's artificial moon, Jurassic Park theme park, Project Pioneer (Tiran Island), NEOM Bay Marina, Garden of the Four Seasons, City Marina, Other theme parks of the future, Other entertainment islands, Iconic concert and festival venue. Starting late last year, Neom began canceling the contracts of many of the projects that were underway. You can see in the latest satellite images that they actually had done a ton of work. And then late last year, that work just stopped. The basic structural problem at Neom was what we've referred to in the past as a dance of mutual delusion. It was a project where truth simply couldn't be told. MBS had fantastical views of what Neom should be, but the people around him wouldn't tell him it was impossible.