Saudi Arabia is luring top executives with big checks in order to create its massive city and entertainment project.
Key Details
- Saudi Arabia is attempting to lure top business executives to work on its upcoming city—Neom.
- Neom is a city being built in northwestern Saudi Arabia. It will be a futuristic city focused on high-tech advancements and aiming to be a massive tourist destination.
- The city is still a work in progress and in order to achieve the big goals, the Saudi government is luring top executives in fields like tourism and technology to come work for the city with promises of big paychecks.
Why It’s News
The city of Neom was first announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017. The vision he has for the city is for it to be a large-scale architectural display that is almost fantasy-like.
In order to achieve these goals the city is attempting to hire top executives in certain fields with annual checks reaching as high as $1.1 million including big bonuses and other incentives.
The big thing is—there is no income tax in Saudi Arabia. That means these executives leaving other companies for these jobs will not only get a much higher paycheck, but also every dime will go straight to their pocket and not to taxes.
“Needless to say that building a 100% renewable energy system from scratch and the largest green hydrogen plant in the world is more of a motivator than the actual salary paid,” said the former chief executive of German energy company RWE AG and now head of Neom’s energy, water and food sectors, Peter Terium.
Other ways Saudi Arabia offers Big Money
Neom isn’t the only way Saudi Arabia is scouring talent and offering big checks.
Saudi Arabia has started a new golf league that is competing with the famous PGA Tour. The new professional golf tour, founded by Greg Norman and financed by Saudi Arabia, is promising big money and pulling players from the long-established U.S. tour.
The new LIV Tour has pulled many golfers away from the PGA Tour with big money promises. For example, LIV will pay Phil Mickelson $200 million to play in the startup tour, which is nearly double what legend Tiger Woods has earned in prize money during his entire career. LIV gave the world’s number-one golfer Dustin Johnson a four-year, $125 million contract, which doubled his lifetime earnings of $74 million.
