Mohammed bin Salman

Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (born 31 August 1985), also known as MbS, is the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, formally serving as Crown Prince and Prime Minister. He is the heir apparent to the Saudi throne, the seventh son of King Salman, and the grandson of the nation's founder, Ibn Saud.

Mohammed is the first child of King Salman bin Abdulaziz and his third wife, Fahda bint Falah Al Hithlain. After obtaining a law degree from King Saud University, he became an advisor to his father in 2009. He was appointed deputy crown prince and defence minister after his father became king in 2015, then promoted to crown prince in 2017. Mohammed succeeded his father as prime minister in 2022.

Since his appointment as crown prince in 2017, Mohammed has introduced a series of liberal social and economic reforms; these include curtailing the influence of the Wahhabi religious establishment by restricting the powers of the religious police and improving women's rights, removing the ban on female drivers in 2018, and weakening the male-guardianship system in 2019. His government has continued to imprison women's rights activists on terrorism charges. His Saudi Vision 2030 programme aims to reduce the Saudi economy's reliance on oil through investment in other sectors such as technology, tourism, sport, and the megaproject Neom; the economy remains heavily reliant on oil.

Under Mohammed, Saudi Arabia has pursued a foreign policy aimed at increasing the country's regional and international influence and attracting greater foreign investment. The Kingdom has coordinated energy policy with Russia, strengthened its relations with China, became a major non-NATO ally of the United States, and expanded diplomatic and commercial relations with emerging economies and regional powers in Africa, South America, and Asia. Mohammed was the architect of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen and was involved in the escalation of the Qatar diplomatic crisis, as well as a 2018 diplomatic dispute with Canada.

Mohammed leads an authoritarian government. Those regarded as political dissidents are systematically repressed through methods including imprisonment, torture, and executions, including for online criticism. Between 2017 and 2019, he led the purge of competing Saudi political and economic elites on an anti-corruption platform, seizing up to US$800 billion in assets and cash and cementing control over Saudi politics. A 2021 report by the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) found that Mohammed had ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Early life, education and career

Mohammed bin Salman was born on 31 August 1985, the son of Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz and his third wife, Fahda bint Falah Al Hithlain. He is the eldest of his mother's six children and the eighth child and seventh son of his father. His full siblings include Prince Turki and Defense Minister Prince Khalid. Mohammed holds a bachelor's degree in law from King Saud University, where he graduated second in his class.

Early career

After graduating from university, Mohammed spent several years in the private sector before becoming an aide to his father. He worked as a consultant for the Experts Commission, working for the Saudi Cabinet. On 15 December 2009, at the age of 24, he entered politics as a special advisor to his father when the latter was the governor of Riyadh Province. At this time, Mohammed began to move from one position to another, such as secretary-general of the Riyadh Competitive Council, special advisor to the chairman of the board for the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives, and a member of the board of trustees for Albir Society in the Riyadh region. In October 2011, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz died. Prince Salman began his ascent to power by becoming second deputy prime minister and minister of defence. He made Mohammed his private advisor.

Chief of the Court

In June 2012, Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz died. Mohammed moved up into the number two position in the hierarchy, as his father became the new crown prince and first deputy prime minister. On 2 March 2013, Chief of the Crown Prince Court Saud bin Nayef Al Saud was appointed governor of the Eastern Province, and Mohammed succeeded him as chief of the court. He was also given the rank of minister. On 25 April 2014, Mohammed was appointed state minister.

Rise to power

Minister of Defence

On 23 January 2015, King Abdullah died and Salman ascended the throne. Mohammed was appointed minister of defence and secretary general of the royal court. In addition, he retained his post as the minister of state.

The political unrest in Yemen (which began escalating in 2011) rapidly became a major issue for the newly appointed minister of defence, with Houthis taking control of northern Yemen in late 2014, followed by the resignation of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and his cabinet. Mohammed's first move as minister was to mobilise a pan-GCC coalition to intervene following a series of suicide bombings in the Yemeni capital Sana'a via air strikes against Houthis, and impose a naval blockade. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia began leading a coalition of countries allied against the Houthi rebels. While there was agreement among those Saudi princes heading security services regarding the necessity of a response to the Houthis' seizure of Sana'a, which had forced the Yemeni government into exile, Mohammed launched the intervention without full coordination across security services. Saudi National Guard minister Mutaib bin Abdullah Al Saud, who was out of the country, was left out of the loop of operations. While Mohammed saw the war as a quick win on Houthi rebels in Yemen and a way to put President Hadi back in power, it became a long war of attrition.

In April 2015, King Salman appointed his nephew Muhammad bin Nayef as crown prince and his son Mohammed as deputy crown prince. In late 2015, at a meeting between his father and Barack Obama, Mohammed bin Salman broke protocol to deliver a monologue criticising US foreign policy. When he announced an anti-terrorist military alliance of Islamic countries in December 2015, some countries involved said they had not been consulted.

Regarding his role in the military intervention, Mohammed gave his first on-the-record interview on 4 January 2016 to The Economist, which had called him the "architect of the war in Yemen". Denying the title, he explained the mechanism of the decision-making institutions actually holding stakes in the intervention, including the council of security and political affairs and the ministry of foreign affairs from the Saudi side. He added that the Houthis usurped power in Sana'a before he was minister of defence.

In response to the threat from ISIL, Mohammed established the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC), a Saudi-led Islamic alliance against terrorism, in December 2015. The IMCTC's first meeting took place in Riyadh in November 2017 and involved defence ministers and officials from 41 countries.

Crown prince

Mohammed was appointed crown prince on 21 June 2017, following the King's decision to depose Muhammad bin Nayef and make his own son the heir to the throne. The change of succession had been predicted in December 2015 by a public memo published by the German Federal Intelligence Service, which was subsequently rebuked by the German government.

On the day bin Salman became crown prince, US president Donald Trump called to congratulate him. Trump and Mohammed pledged "close cooperation" on security and economic issues and discussed the need to cut off support for terrorism, the diplomatic dispute with Qatar, and the push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Mohammed told The Washington Post in April 2017 that without America's cultural influence on Saudi Arabia, "we would have ended up like North Korea."

2017 purge

In May 2017, Mohammed launched a purge against competing Saudi business and political elites in an anti-corruption campaign. He said, "no one will survive in a corruption case—whoever he is, even if he's a prince or a minister". In November 2017, he ordered some 200 wealthy businessmen and princes to be placed under house arrest in The Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh. On 4 November 2017, the Saudi press announced the arrest of the Saudi prince and billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal, a frequent English-language news commentator and a major shareholder in Citi, News Corp and Twitter, as well as over 40 princes and government ministers on corruption and money laundering charges. Others arrested or fired in the purge included Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, head of the Saudi Arabian National Guard; Minister of Economy and Planning Adel Fakeih; and the commander of the Royal Saudi Navy, Admiral Abdullah bin Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Sultan.