Amazon boss will not join Saudi’s ‘Davos in the Desert’

Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos will not attend the Saudi investment forum dubbed “Davos in the Desert” which begins today.

Neither Bezos nor Amazon’s executive managers will be in attendance.

The decision further reinforces the rift between the billionaire and the Saudi royal family which began following the murder of former Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi officials. Bezos owns the broadsheet paper.

A $1 billion deal to build Amazon data centres in Saudi Arabia stalled following Khashoggi’s murder, the Washington Post reported.

Organisers say 300 speakers from 30 countries, including US officials and heads of global banks and major sovereign wealth funds, will attend Saudi’s three-day Future Investment Initiative (FII) summit that seeks to project the kingdom as a dynamic investment destination.

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