Tech’s transportation companies keep bending the knee to Saudi Arabia
In an interview with Axios that aired November 10th, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi called the murder of the journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Arabia “a serious mistake” — before quickly backtracking and admitting that it was his comments, and not Khashoggi’s murder, that were the actual mistake. But Khosrowshahi’s comments were not made in isolation. There is a pattern emerging of transportation companies with deep financial ties to Saudi Arabia being friendly to the regime in the face of international outcry.
It’s bad enough right now for huge companies doing business in countries with oppressive regimes, as we’ve seen recently with China’s strong-arming of the NBA and Blizzard. But Saudi Arabia’s practice of directly...