Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about Mohammed bin Salman for this week and next week with my former colleague and current friend, David Pell. David. Hello. Hi, where can the good and bad people on the internet find you?
You know, before that I realized, I don't think I've said, thank you for having me on. I didn't say that.
Oh, you don't need to thank me.
I know. It's just the thing you say on podcasts and it occurred to me. I was like, I didn't even say that anyway. Thank you for having me on. You asked where you could find me. Google Gamefully Unemployed. G-A-M-E-F-U-L-L-Y. Unemployed. It's a movie podcast, mostly in TV. Or watch some more news hosted by Cody Johnston. News show, like a talking head. News show. I am the head writer over there.
He is. I'm bossing people around.
Yeah, you're the king over there. Just like Mohammed bin Salman kind of is in Saudi Arabia. And Dave, I would thank you for being the guest, but actually I'm going to thank you for watching my cat for half a year that one time.
Oh, that was a delight.
Which is much bigger of an ask than being on a podcast. Oh, yeah.
That cat left a scar on me. I'm pretty sure I still have it somewhere.
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Chapter 2: What catastrophic dependence on oil revenue existed in Saudi Arabia by the time MBS was born?
Yeah, exactly, exactly. You can be like, I can have your family killed, you know that? If you're mean to me.
That's how you make a monster.
That's how you make a monster, yeah.
Yeah, that's like if a group of people were like, hey, you know what would be funny? If we made a monster. How do we do that?
And that sounds like what you would do. It's one of those things, there's a sweet spot, because it's bad if a kid is always afraid that his parents are going to hit him, but it's also bad if a kid knows no one he could possibly talk to will ever smack him in the mouth. It's true.
It shouldn't be your parents, but you should know that if you moth off to a stranger, who knows what they'll do, as opposed to the stranger will be scared that you'll have their family killed. One of those is worse than the other.
He's, he's living on the holodeck. Like that's what it is. It's a world exclusively built for him. Exactly.
Yeah. You should go through brain damage.
Yeah. Yeah. You should know that you could get a smack from somebody, someone, not someone, a classmate, some guy to the bar, you know, like that.
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Chapter 3: How did MBS's upbringing influence his personality and future ambitions?
He tends to prefer, MBS tends to prefer socializing with the guards to paying attention during his English lessons. Quote, as the oldest of his siblings, he seemed to be allowed to do as he pleased. My ability to command the younger prince's attention would only last until Muhammad would turn up. So again, he's not the top of his family, but he's the top of the second family.
So it's like, again, it's just constantly the worst of all worlds, right? Yeah. Where he's the head of his small world, but he also regularly butts up against this other world where he's nothing, you know? Yeah. Since his dad lives in a different palace and is seldom around, this means that MBS is effectively the man of the house from like sixth grade on.
He is in charge in a very literal sense, and he gets to give orders to a staff of dozens of adults. He develops a habit of playing pranks, as Rashid recollected. I still have a memory of him using a walkie-talkie in our classes, borrowed from one of the guards. He would use it to make cheeky remarks about me and crack jokes between his brothers and guards on the other end.
That's not a very good prank.
That's not a prank at all. That's just being a dick. That's just being a dick. Yeah. Yeah. Again, a teacher should have the right to at least spray water at a kid if they do something like that. A little bit of water. Right, like a cat. Like a cat. Like a cat. Exactly. Like, stop it. Stop it.
They had to give them some sort of special pass for this stuff.
Yeah. Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't note that Sakai himself still says that he became fond of Muhammad and his siblings. He describes them all as curious to learn but keen to play around, just like his non-royal students. Sakai's account gives us an interesting insight into the bizarre world of royal family life.
For example, quote, "...on one occasion I was taken aback when Muhammad told me that his mother, the princess, had said that I seemed like a true gentleman. I had no recollection of meeting her." Saudi women royalty don't appear in front of strangers, and the only female I came across was a nanny from the Philippines.
I was oblivious to the fact that I was being watched until the future heir to the throne pointed to some CCTV cameras on the wall. From that point onwards, I would always feel self-conscious in my lessons.
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Chapter 4: How did MBS navigate his childhood relationships with his half-siblings?
I'm sure he earned his admittance the hard way. And he gets a law degree. He graduates second in his class, which again, I'm sure he did the honest way. Wow. By this point, Mohammed bin Salman decided to take another stab at trying to get rich on his own.
He makes the smart move of finally reaching out to actual professionals, businessmen in Riyadh who were scared of pissing off the governor and wouldn't tell his annoying kid to fuck off. One imagines that Prince Salman puts in a good word with them on behalf of his son and perhaps maybe brings up some blackmail gently.
However it happens, MBS winds up with $800,000 to try his hand at starting another investment portfolio, right? Wow, he managed to bootstrap himself up again to having even more money to try to make money with. Amazing. He invests in U.S. corporations, and this goes better for him. In 2008, when he's 23, he starts investing in the Tatawul exchange, which is the Saudi stock exchange, right?
Now, since nearly all of the companies on the Saudi exchange are owned or run by the government, a.k.a. his family, it's pretty easy for someone like MBSā to do what we would call insider trading, which he would call calling his cousin who runs the company and says, hey, are you about to have any good news? Should I get some stock now?
I'm surprised he even had to try. It reminds me of the Stonecutter Simpsons episode where they're all just letting Homer win, where it's like, do you even have to call? Like, yeah, they could just, man.
And it's a mark of how sketchy he still is at this that he does get invested for insider trading. And now nothing happens to him, but he's still obvious enough that someone looks into it.
Who looked into that? That's incredible. Yeah.
Someone who got fucking bone sawed. That's who.
Right. To do something so bad or illegal that someone's like, okay, this is going to kill me, but I have to do something about this.
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