Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) seems to continue his megalomania after arresting princes, torturing his ministers, and buys paintings worth millions of dollars with his people’s money.
MBS has recently held a series of meetings with some ministers and officials with the aim of establishing a museum for the history of Al Saud, well-informed sources said.
The sources added that MBS ordered his minister not to publish details of the museum or make any press statements about the project. However, the sources confirmed that the Al Saud Museum's cost is estimated at about 4 billion dollars.
Bin Salman's extravagant spending since emerging as the main power broker in Saudi Arabia has repeatedly made headlines.
During his trip to France to meet President Emmanuel Macron, MBS stayed at a lavish chateau dubbed “the world's most expensive home” when he purchased it in 2015.
The Chateau Louis XIV in Louveciennes outside Paris is a new-build mansion intended to mimic the extravagant luxury of the nearby Versailles Palace, once the seat of the French royal family.
The 7,000-square-metre property was bought by an undisclosed buyer in 2015 for 275 million euros ($300 million at the time), leading Fortune magazine to call it “the world’s most expensive home.”
Bin Salman, 36, was reported two years' later by The New York Times to be the ultimate owner via a series of shell companies.
In a twist of history, the Chateau Louis XIV was built by Khashoggi's cousin Emad Khashoggi who runs a luxury property development business in France.
The chateau features a nightclub, a gold-leafed fountain, a cinema, as well as an underwater glass chamber in the moat that resembles a giant aquarium with white leather sofas.
Photos on the website of Emad Khashoggi's company, Cogemad, also show a wine cellar, although alcohol is strictly prohibited in Saudi Arabia.
Chateau Louis XIV was built in 2009 after a 19th-century castle on the plot was bulldozed.
Sometime around 2018, the New York Times had reported that Bin Salman was the ultimate owner of the chateau through a series of shell companies.
The 7,000-square-metre grand home is situated right outside Paris in Louveciennes. It is a newly-built mansion intended to replicate the extravagant luxury of the nearby Versailles Palace which once was the seat of the French royal family.
The lavish and equally gigantic chateau features a nightclub and eye-grabbing gold-leafed fountain. The property also houses a cinema, as well as an underwater glass chamber in the moat that resembles a giant aquarium with white leather sofas.
The son of King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud bought a $500-million yacht in 2015 and was also reported to be the mystery buyer of a $450-million Leonardo da Vinci painting in 2017.
MBS has long been criticised for his huge spending on unreal megacities, saying that architecture is often drawn to authoritarian regimes for no other reason than their ability to do things by decree, citing NEOM mega-project as an example.
It is worth mentioning that NEOM offered tax-free salaries of $700,000 to $900,000 for some senior expatriates, more than 20 times the income of the average Saudi, and a broad range of other perks.
NEOM has become something of a full-employment guarantee for international architects, futurists, and even Hollywood production designers, each taking a cut of Saudi Arabia’s petroleum riches in exchange for work that some strongly suspect will never be used and for designs that never see the light of day.
