What the Saudi $925 Billion Sovereign Wealth Fund Is Actually Building

The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, known by its acronym PIF, is one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, with approximately 925 billion dollars in assets under management as of 2024. It owns or has significant equity stakes in the LIV Golf tour, Newcastle United Football Club, multiple Hollywood studios, large positions in Lucid Motors and Live Nation, the Savvy Games Group (one of the largest gaming holding companies globally), 50 percent of Magic Leap, and minority stakes in Uber, Pacific Investment Management Company, and dozens of other names. It is also the primary financial backer of NEOM, an estimated 1-trillion-dollar attempt to build a futuristic city in the desert.

It is also, by any reasonable measure, the most aggressively spending sovereign wealth fund in modern history.

The PIF Model. Most sovereign wealth funds — Norway, Singapore, Abu Dhabi — operate as long-term passive investors with diversified portfolios and minimal political coloring. PIF is different. It functions as the financial arm of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 program, which seeks to transform the Saudi economy away from oil dependence by 2030. The fund's mandate is explicitly developmental, not just financial. It buys sports leagues, video game studios, and Hollywood properties because they fit the political-economic narrative as much as because they fit a portfolio model.

This produces unusual investment patterns. PIF acquired the LIV Golf brand in 2022 and merged it (controversially) with the PGA Tour in 2024. It owns approximately 60 percent of Lucid Motors, the EV company that has burned billions and continues to lose money. It bid 60 billion dollars to acquire EA Sports' parent Electronic Arts in 2025 (the offer was withdrawn). It has tried, repeatedly, to acquire Disney IP rights, Netflix subsidiaries, and major American sports franchises. The cumulative pattern is "buy the cultural footprint."

NEOM Specifically. The most ambitious of PIF's bets is NEOM, a 26,500-square-kilometer planned city in northwestern Saudi Arabia. Project components include The Line (a 170-kilometer linear city designed to house 9 million people in two parallel mirror-clad skyscrapers), Sindalah (a luxury island), Trojena (a winter mountain resort with snow), Oxagon (an industrial port), and Magna (a historical-tourism complex). The total announced cost is somewhere between 500 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars, though credible auditing of these figures is essentially impossible.

Construction has been ongoing since 2017. Progress has been slower than originally announced. The Line, originally planned to be 170 kilometers and house 9 million people by 2030, was scaled back in 2024 to a 2.4-kilometer initial section housing 300,000 people by 2030. Sindalah was supposed to open in 2024; the soft launch happened in late 2024 with limited capacity. Most of the megaproject is still primarily in earthwork and foundation phase.

The Financial Question. PIF generates returns primarily from its public-equity portfolio (roughly 100 billion dollars in US-listed equities, including significant Lucid, Activision, and various tech positions) and from its private-equity holdings. NEOM, by contrast, is essentially capital expenditure with uncertain payback. The investment horizon is multi-decade, but the funding requirement is immediate. PIF has had to take on increasing debt to fund the megaproject pipeline — its debt issuance roughly doubled between 2022 and 2024.

Saudi oil revenues continue to fund the kingdom's broader budget, but the price of oil determines how much fiscal slack is available for PIF's ambitions. At 60-dollar oil, the kingdom runs a deficit. At 90-dollar oil, it can sustain the spending. The tension between megaproject ambition and oil-price reality is the central financial question of Saudi Vision 2030.

The Strategic Bet. The reasoning behind the strategy is coherent, even if the execution is uncertain. Saudi Arabia knows it cannot remain a commodity exporter indefinitely. Diversification into culture, sport, technology, gaming, and tourism is intended to create a post-oil revenue base. PIF's investment patterns are the visible expression of that strategy.

What makes the bet difficult to evaluate is that traditional financial-return metrics do not apply. PIF's stated goal is not to generate the highest risk-adjusted return; it is to reposition Saudi Arabia in the global economic order. Whether that reposition justifies the capital deployed is a question that will not be answerable for another 15-20 years.

In the meantime, PIF will continue to be one of the most active large-capital allocators in global markets. Watching what it buys is itself a leading indicator of where Saudi strategy is heading.

Now go enjoy your Saturday.

Sources: - Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia annual reports - Industry coverage: Bloomberg, Financial Times, Reuters - Saudi Vision 2030 documentation - NEOM official announcements