Elon Musk was not yet listed as a Forbes billionaire when Prince Alwaleed bin Talal discreetly wrote a $300 million check for Twitter in 2011. The prince, on the other hand, was already a legend. He had purchased a stake in News Corp., placed large bets on Apple during its darkest days, and established an empire that stretched from hotel lobbies in London’s Savoy to the opulent corridors of the George V in Paris. He was the type of investor who trusted his gut over quarterly earnings reports, moved slowly, and thought in decades. For a while, the 2011 Twitter investment appeared to be a good but unremarkable choice. After fifteen years, it appears to have been one of his best wagers.
According to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Alwaleed’s net worth reached a ten-year high of approximately $24.5 billion after his company, Kingdom Holding Company, confirmed a 0.63% combined stake in SpaceX. The path that led him there was anything but simple. A less patient investor would have been alarmed by the corporate gymnastics that included fund rounds, mergers, restructurings, and a five-for-one stock split. However, Alwaleed persevered through it all, and in the end, the math worked. Gulf Times Following a series of mergers, including X into xAI, further investment rounds in 2024, xAI folding into SpaceX, and the pre-IPO stock split, Twitter’s shares were transferred into Musk’s private vehicle at the $54.20 buyout price, or roughly $1.89 billion. The prince eventually received more than 82 million SpaceX shares as a result of that trip.
Although it’s still unclear how much of that result Alwaleed expected, it seems likely that even he was taken aback by the final result. Gulf Times The combined 0.63% stake could be worth roughly $10.6 billion based on SpaceX’s targeted IPO valuation of $1.75 trillion. This amount far exceeds what nearly everyone anticipated when Kingdom Holding first began building up Musk-related exposure. The value of that SpaceX holding almost completely outweighs the market capitalization of Kingdom Holding Company, which has a portfolio that includes real estate, hospitality, and equity investments. This is what makes this story so subtly amazing. It appears that one rocket company has subtly emerged as the pinnacle of a long-standing empire. Arabian BusinessAGBI The larger picture that is emerging here is difficult to ignore.
For years, Gulf sovereign wealth funds, such as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala, and ADQ, have increased their exposure to SpaceX and the larger Musk ecosystem. This is not just financial speculation, but rather a longer-term strategic shift away from reliance on oil. The SpaceX IPO is more than just a stock market event for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It’s a piece of information in a much bigger narrative about the types of economies they’re attempting to create. “As one analyst based in Dubai put it, “Saudi Arabia and the UAE are trying to grow beyond oil and build stronger technology economies,” and this shift is evident in how their money moves. AGBI The SpaceX IPO was especially accessible to Gulf investors due to geopolitical considerations.
Due to SpaceX’s strong ties to the US defense industry, only nations that are seen as US allies have been able to access its initial public offering (IPO), a distinction that the Gulf states take great care to uphold. In terms of governance, the stakes are low and passive, but the message they convey is important. Alwaleed is a Saudi billionaire who is once again proving that he knows how to stand close to the right people at the right time. His role is more about alignment than control. As investors priced in the SpaceX windfall, Gulf Times Kingdom Holding shares have risen more than 53% so far this year, reaching a 10-year high.
This increase is largely due to sentiment rather than fundamentals. With assets valued at levels he hasn’t seen in more than ten years, there is currently conjecture about what Alwaleed might do next. It remains to be seen if he stays with SpaceX for the long run or starts to reduce his role after lock-up periods end. One of the more surprising chapters in contemporary investing has already been written by Prince Alwaleed’s SpaceX investment, which originated from a social media wager made in a very different era. Sometimes the best course of action is to be patient.
