In an interview with Yahoo News, the former Twitter executive Vivian Schiller said that Saudi dissidents should consider dropping their use of the social media platform in light of the outside role that a prominent Saudi billionaire, with close ties to his country’s repressive government, has in the newly organized company under Elon Musk.
As part of the restructured firm, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal — chair of Kingdom Holdings and a public ally of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS — has emerged as the second-largest shareholder in Twitter, with a $1.89 billion stake in the company, Vivian Schiller clarified.
That has raised new questions about what the Saudis, who notoriously infiltrated Twitter and stole personal data on dissidents several years ago, hope to get in return for their investment, according to Vivian Schiller, who served as chief of global news for Twitter from 2013 to 2014.
“For dissidents or others who are operating anonymously, I would probably caution them about their continued use of Twitter,” Schiller told the Yahoo News.
Such users should “take a look at the kind of information they provided [to Twitter] — cell phone numbers, etc. — when they logged in, and maybe quit the platform.”
MBS Spies on his People
Schiller has first-hand experience with one of the key players in the Saudi plot to target political critics.
In her role as chief of global news at Twitter, Schiller worked closely with Ahmad Abouammo, who at the time was the company’s manager of news partnerships in the Middle East and North Africa.
Abouammo, who was arrested by the FBI in 2019, was recently convicted in federal court of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to supply Saudi officials with the personal data, including cell phone numbers, of Saudi dissidents and exiles critical of their government.
The Saudi plot, according to FBI and Justice Department documents, came from the top. Abouammo’s handler in the corporate espionage plan was the personal secretary to MBS and, as Yahoo News reported last year, the crown prince even boasted about the plot to an associate: “That was us. We did that. We have our guy at Twitter,” he reportedly said.
Yahoo News also reported that Capitol Hill. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, last week called on the Committee on Foreign Investment — which reviews foreign investments in U.S. companies — to conduct an investigation into the “national security implications” of the deal.
So too did Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the Democratic chair of the Senate Finance Committee. “I’ve long argued that the United States has a national security interest in protecting Americans’ data from murderous foreign governments, and this Saudi regime absolutely fits that description,” Wyden said in a statement.
High Costs Of Too Much Government Spending
Despite the oil revenues and the Saudi budget surplus, the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund seeks to lend $11bn, filling the hole left by providing financing for crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s failed economic projects and spying programs.
The provisional revenue collection figures for the Fiscal Year 2021-22 showed tax revenue increased from 63.9 billion riyals in the first quarter of 2021, to 72.7 billion riyals in the first quarter of 2022.
This rise was intended to be temporary after the drop in oil prices from mid-2014 to early 2016. However, the Value Added Tax (VAT) rate increased from 5% to 15% following the Covid outbreak in 2020. The new 15 % VAT has been continuing despite the increase in oil prices.
The government of Saudi Arabia projected that about 223 billion Saudi Arabian Riyal of its revenue for 2022 was generated from taxation on goods and services. This pushed MBS to use the surplus budget in implementing Vision 2030 plan instead of reducing taxation.
In 2020, the Saudi PIF has invested more than $7.7 billion in some of the world’s best-known companies including Boeing, Walt Disney, Starbucks, Marriott and Citigroup.
Saudi academic d. Saad Al-Faqih has earlier stated that the PIF which is supposed to invest the surplus funds of the state, is borrowing from Saudi and foreign banks “in the name of the state.”
MBS Uncontrolled Spending
Bloomberg has earlier revealed that A Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece was sold for a record $450 million in 2017 to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
A Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece, whose whereabouts has been a mystery since it sold in 2017 for a record $450 million, has turned up in an unlikely place, according to Artnet.com.
“Salvator Mundi” is being kept on superyacht Serene owned by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the publication reported, citing two “principals involved in the transaction” that it didn’t identify.
Another Saudi prince was said to have purchased the 500-year-old painting on MBS’s behalf at a 2017 Christie’s auction, the New York Times reported previously.
