> What does it mean for American innovation to be backed by oil wealth? > Uber. WeWork. Flexport. Slack. MapBox. DoorDash. Chat app? Office rentals? Adding a layer of ripping off restaurants to food delivery? If this is the “American innovation” the Saudis want a piece of, let them have it.
It's probably less about raw "innovation" and more about integrating themselves within the fabric of American society. This achieves simultaneous financial investment and political insurance.
In another 80-100 years' time, we'll have nuclear fusion, and if for some reason we've decided we don't want unlimited cheap power with easily disposed of waste, then we'll settle for solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric power. Battery technology improves dramatically every decade. Eventually we'll make some kind of breakthrough with some kind of material that makes storage capacity a moot point.
Dubai is already trying very very hard to diversity and become the Silicon Valley of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia wants to ensure they have enough investment to maintain the current Saudi way of life, because most Saudis are totally and hopelessly addicted to their government checks they receive from oil profits. It's quite literally pacifying the masses and preventing a type of radical Islam from taking over there, and I mean ISIS-type radical.
No one talks about this except for people who have to work intricately and intimately with Saudi companies and the government or three-letter agency analysts who know the country well, but to say that, "It's a problem" is the mother of all understatements.