According to persons familiar with the situation, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former senior advisor, met with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler and key executives from Saudi Aramco in recent weeks as part of a regional trip that combined personal travel and business.
Kushner has sought funding from the $500 billion Saudi sovereign wealth fund, which is overseen by Prince Mohammed, as well as other government-controlled entities in the area, according to several of the persons who attended the recent trip.
In addition to meeting with the Crown Prince in Riyadh, Kushner visited Saudi Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran, where he met with Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser and other top executives from the state-run oil company. The conversations, according to two of the participants, centered on prospective renewable energy investments.
The visit to Saudi Arabia was part of a larger tour of the Middle East’s most powerful economies. He also traveled to the United Arab Emirates with his family to see Expo 2020 in Dubai and visited Qatar.
Last year, Kushner started forming his investing company. Because Kushner has been soliciting funding from several of the Middle Eastern countries he worked with while in the White House, particularly Saudi Arabia, the initiative has sparked some criticism.
While in the White House, Kushner assisted in the normalization of relations between Israel and numerous Arab countries.
