Neom boss who bragged he ran employees 'like slaves' leaves Saudi megaproject
The chief executive of Saudi Arabia’s futuristic city, Neom, has left his role, along with several other executives who mocked Islam and fought with at least one employee, according to a report on Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal.
Nadhmi al-Nasr, who has managed Neom’s construction since 2018, departed from his post in recent days, leaving while the project is plagued with uncertainty.
The kingdom has had to scale back Neom, originally billed as a $1.5 trillion megacity project, which organisers claim will eventually be 33 times the size of New York City and include a 170km straight-line city known as "The Line".
Instead of 1.5 million people living in the city by 2030, Saudi officials now anticipate fewer than 300,000 residents. Meanwhile, only 2.4km of the city will be completed by 2030.
Nasr earned a chilling reputation managing Neom. He bragged that he drove everyone “like a slave”, adding, “When they drop down dead, I celebrate. That’s how I do my projects.”
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In one incident, after two video game companies cancelled their sponsorship deals with Neom, Nasr threatened his communications team, saying that he would “take a gun from under my desk and shoot you” unless he was told who was responsible for the deals falling through.
Neom is the cornerstone of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to wean the kingdom’s economy from relying on oil revenue.
Until that day, the kingdom needs petrodollars to complete projects like Neom. The International Monetary Fund estimates that Saudi Arabia needs oil prices at $96 per barrel to balance its budget, roughly $24 less than it stands now.
Saudi Arabia has also failed to lure foreign investors. Western bankers and private equity chiefs have flocked to the kingdom for dealmaking but have been reluctant to bet on its most grandiose projects.
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which controls Neom's funding, is now stepping in to take direct control, according to the WSJ.
Iman al-Mudaifer, a PIF real estate executive, is now acting CEO, according to the Saudi Gazette.
Executives depart
According to the WSJ report, two other controversial foreign executives have also left Neom.
Wayne Borg, who headed Neom’s media division, and Antoni Vives, a senior executive who managed The Line project, have left.
Borg was known for his tirades, in which he reportedly disparaged Islam, made lewd references about sexual positions and said women from the Arabian Gulf looked like “transvestites”.
He also called South Asian migrant workers at Neom "fucking morons" and said that “white people are at the top of the pecking order".
Vives was a Nasr ally whose role in The Line project raised questions after a Spanish court convicted him in 2021 of corruption in his previous job at Barcelona’s city hall. At the time, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman intervened to bring Vives back, according to the WSJ.
Vives also reportedly got into a physical altercation with a construction project manager over a deadline issue.
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