Powerful executives stepped away from Saudi Arabia, but not Masayoshi Son

Since the disappearance and apparent killing of a dissident journalist in a Saudi Arabian consulate, some of the most powerful figures in business are distancing themselves from the kingdom. There is one prominent exception: Masayoshi Son, chief executive of the SoftBank Group.
 

Son, the 61-year-old founder of SoftBank, the Japanese internet, energy and financial conglomerate that owns Sprint, is one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest business partners. His company oversees the SoftBank Vision Fund, a technology investment fund that sought $100 billion in investments and received the promise of $45 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.
 

In the two years since then, the Vision Fund has become the largest private equity fund in the world, with beneficiaries that include Uber, WeWork and Slack — some of the world’s most successful start-ups.
 

The success or failure of the joint venture has enormous ramifications for both sides. And now, an investment conference that was to be a triumphant display of the kingdom’s economic modernisation has instead become a painful referendum on its human-rights record. As of Wednesday, Son had not publicly said whether he would attend the conference, known as the Future Investment Initiative, which is scheduled for next week in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. Other executives, including Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber, have canceled plans to attend amid concerns that Saudi officials played a role in the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi.

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