Elon Musk is expected to attend a dinner that President Trump is hosting for Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, on Tuesday.
The Tesla chief executive was invited to the event, according to Punchbowl News, having previously enjoyed a close relationship with Trump when he worked as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
The pair fell out dramatically in June, engaging in a social media brawl after Musk stepped back from his work at Doge to focus on his work in the private sector. It culminated with Trump threatening to cut off government contracts with the billionaire’s companies, while Musk implicated Trump in sealed Jeffrey Epstein files.
In September, Musk appeared publicly with the president for the first time since the spat at a memorial service for Charlie Kirk, an activist who was shot dead.
On Monday, Trump said he would sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, before greeting Prince Mohammed in Washington for the Gulf leader’s first visit in seven years.
In a diplomatic coup for the prince, who earlier this year announced a $600 billion Saudi investment in the US, the president said he had approved the sale of the stealth aircraft to Saudi Arabia.
“They want to buy, they’re a great ally,” he said, speaking in the Oval Office. “Yeah, we will be doing that — we will be selling F-35s.”
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It is Prince Mohammed’s first visit to the US since the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. His arrival comes as Trump continues to call for the country to normalise relations with Israel.
At the Royal Palace in Saudi Arabia earlier this year
AP PHOTO/ALEX BRANDON
“I hope that Saudi Arabia will be going into the Abraham Accords very shortly,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One on Friday.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco have already normalised ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords and Trump has long hoped the prince might join them. “I hope to see Saudi Arabia go in, and I hope to see others go in. I think when Saudi Arabia goes in, everybody goes in,” Trump said last month.
In New York, the UN security council approved a US-led motion to endorse a Trump-backed peace deal in Gaza, which includes the idea of a technocratic administration that is intended to run the territory, as well as the international peacekeeping force that will provide security for an initial two years.
Russia and China abstained from the vote, allowing it to pass 13-0. Trump said it would “go down as one of the biggest approvals in the History of the United Nations”. Hamas, meanwhile, rejected the resolution.
“It dismantles Hamas’ grip, it ensures Gaza rises free from terror’s shadow, prosperous and secure,” Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, said before the vote.
Even with the UN vote, Saudi Arabia is unlikely to join the Abraham Accords imminently, given its demand that a roadmap to a Palestinian state must be agreed first, a condition firmly opposed by Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.
Instead the two-day visit is set to focus on defence, energy and artificial intelligence. Saudi Arabia will host an investment conference at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Wednesday.
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There had previously been doubts over whether Trump would approve the sale of F-35s. White House officials had told the Associated Press that the administration was anxious about disturbing Israel’s military advantage over neighbours in the region at such a sensitive time for the Gaza peace plan.
There was also concern that China could access the F-35 technology given it maintains close ties to Saudi Arabia — but Trump appeared to brush off this possibility.
Among a raft of other deals, the kingdom is also expected to secure an agreement to develop its civil nuclear energy with Washington’s co-operation, something that will have to be approved by Congress.
At the meeting the two leaders will move on from the events of 2018, when the prince undertook an extensive tour of the US in the spring, meeting Trump and business leaders and promoting an image of a modernised Saudi Arabia open to the world.
Months later Saudi agents murdered and dismembered Khashoggi, the exiled Saudi writer and Washington Post columnist, in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. His death sparked global outrage and the CIA concluded that the crown prince had authorised the killing. He denies any role in Khashoggi’s murder.
Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in 2018
HASAN JAMALI/AP
President Biden flew to Saudi Arabia in 2022, where he greeted the prince with a fist bump, and Trump visited the country in May for his first major overseas trip, where he touted a $600 billion investment pledge by the Saudis.
Trump signalled at the time that he was prepared to deepen ties with the Arab state. To applause, he told a crowd he would no longer be “giving you lectures on how to live”.
The Trump family has since nurtured considerable business ties with the country. On Monday a Saudi developer, Dar Global, announced a partnership with the Trump Organisation in the Maldives which would include the construction of a luxury hotel, the developer said in a statement.