What does $500 billion build in the Saudi desert?

The investigative project I've been working on for the past 6 months is finally out. It goes deep inside the story of Neom, MBS's science fiction-inspired plan to create a whole new region from scratch.

bloomberg.com/features/2022-… To reconstruct Neom's opaque 5-year history, I spoke to dozens of people, including senior executives -- current and former -- who've worked on the project. I also obtained 2,700 pages of internal documents and made a rare site visit. bloomberg.com/features/2022-…

Our scoop today: Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 programs could face $$ cuts as the plan continues to undergo review. Even before the crisis, officials had decided on a budget cut of around 70% for a key program to develop industry and logistics, called NIDLP.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… “Officials had also decided to create two new initiatives under the plan dedicated to health and private-sector development, while canceling two others focused on international partnerships and helping Saudi companies go global...” bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Saudi news outlet Al Arabiya has written 1700 words on @KarenAttiah, profiling her from birth. Her last name is "uncommon in America," they write, using that as a segue into her family history and how her parents met.
alarabiya.net/ar/arab-and-wo… A real sentence from the article: "This has raised a question: How did an African woman from Desoto - a suburb of Dallas - with an African history divided between Ghana and Nigeria, come to harness all of her energy with the Saudi story of Jamal Khashoggi?"

THREAD: The reaction of readers to the coverage of Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance has made me realize that many people know little about how to critically evaluate the news they are consuming. A few words below on how to read news smartly. First of all, what's the news outlet? If it's state-owned/supported, or based in a state w/out press freedom, read with an appropriate amount of skepticism, but don't discount it. States often use their outlets to leak certain perspectives, and that in itself tells you something.