Watching the conduct of our tech overlords has answered questions I’d by no means thought to ask. How do you NDA an army of baby mamas? Is there something extra embarrassing than impersonating Benson Boone? (Additionally, who’s Benson Boone?) And now, the most recent: how lengthy after a sovereign ruler of a repressive state murders certainly one of your columnists must you make a take care of him? The reply, it seems, is just a little over six years.
In October 2018, Jamal Khashoggi, a author for the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Submit, was killed and dismembered with the approval of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (higher referred to as MBS) after Khashoggi entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get paperwork for his upcoming marriage. His physique has by no means been discovered. On Could thirteenth, Bezos’ Amazon introduced it might work with Humain, MBS’ AI firm, to construct an “AI Zone” in Saudi Arabia — and the two companies will spend more than $5 billion in the process.
Saudi cash is old news in the tech industry — the Public Funding Fund has sloshed into a number of startups, both immediately or through intermediaries equivalent to SoftBank. Morally bankrupt moneygrubbers equivalent to Andreessen Horowitz have been wooing Saudi funds for a while. (Maybe that’s the actual motive they endorsed the Saudis’ most popular candidate?) This isn’t the primary deal for Amazon, both. In March, Amazon pledged to invest $5 billion to construct knowledge facilities in a rustic that’s scrambling to look futuristic.
In 2024, Saudi Arabia mentioned it wished to construct an AI-powered economic system. There’s a flowery web site for Project 2030, which I suppose is supposed to distract us from all of the oil cash. That date isn’t a coincidence — many projections say that’s when oil production will peak after which decline. No matter when the precise peak happens, a worldwide shift away from petroleum threatens Saudi Arabia’s wealth. That’s why the nation is behaving like a dipshit startup.
Take Neom, billed as the town of the longer term, vaporware at a beforehand unimagined scale that additionally served as a “key device” for MBS to consolidate energy, according to Ali Dogan, a researcher on the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. Khashoggi’s homicide was a blow to the mission, as luminaries equivalent to OpenAI’s Sam Altman and former US power secretary Ernest Moniz suspended their involvement. Numerous corporations publicly renounced Saudi cash — not less than, for some time.
Does the liberty to assassinate depend as one of many private liberties Bezos claims to treasure?
Neom is transferring down the fully predictable vaporware path. It retains getting delayed and downsized, which is sensible as a result of it’s now not the town of the longer term and a spectacular funding alternative as soon as it’s constructed — it’s simply one other metropolis. However, in accordance with Saudi officers, we received’t have to fret about that for an additional 50, or probably 100, years. Within the meantime, although, contracts! Funding! AI!
Look, I don’t anticipate ethics out of Altman or any of his ilk. However for fundamental causes of sustaining worker morale, I’d hesitate to put money into a state that actually murdered certainly one of my contractors. And didn’t merely homicide him — however dismembered after which disappeared him. A chance the state had solely as a result of Khashoggi wished to get married. Homicide is dangerous sufficient, however each single element makes it worse.
These days, it appears Bezos has been dismantling the Washington Submit, one of many US’ premier journalistic establishments — placing British failure machine Will Lewis, recognized for his function within the UK phone-hacking scandal, in cost. Final yr, the Submit didn’t endorse a candidate within the US presidential race for the primary time since 1960, leading to greater than 200,000 canceled subscriptions. Its stars have been fleeing in droves. (Ann Telnaes, who was driven to quit the Submit after a cartoon making enjoyable of Bezos was killed, just lately received a Pulitzer Prize for her work. Oops!) Now, in any case Bezos’ posturing concerning the free press, he’s slicing offers with individuals who homicide journalists for saying inconvenient issues. However perhaps we should always have seen that coming when he banned op-ed writers from opposing “free speech and the markets.” Does the liberty to assassinate depend as one of many private liberties Bezos claims to treasure?
It’s all so spineless. I imply, we already know that MBS could have hacked Bezos’ telephone, however I suppose that’s water underneath the bridge. Or perhaps not. Perhaps MBS acquired one thing actual good in that hack. Unattainable to say whether or not that is motivated by kompromat or greed, I suppose. However regardless of the motive, we all know one factor: it takes 5 years for Bezos to go from posting his photo op with the headstone of a murdered reporter to creating billion-dollar offers together with his killer.