Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Al Saud has returned to Forbes' billionaire list in 2025 with a net worth of 16.5 billion USD, becoming the richest Arab in the world. However, what draws attention to him is not just the amount of wealth he possesses, but the way he invests: multi-industry, strategic, and continuously expanding.
Who is Prince Alwaleed and why did he return to the billionaire list?
Born in 1955, Prince Alwaleed is not only the grandson of the founding king of Saudi Arabia – King Abdulaziz Al Saud – but also the grandson of Lebanon's first Prime Minister. He appeared on Forbes' billionaire list in 2017 with a net worth of 18.7 billion USD, but was removed from the list in 2018 when Forbes stopped tracking Saudi billionaires.
In 2025, he was the only one among the Saudi billionaires of 2017 to return to the list, while also ranking first among the 15 Saudi billionaires participating this year. His global ranking on the list is 128.
The owner's wealth mainly comes from his shares in Kingdom Holding Company – a group he founded 45 years ago and currently owns up to 78.13%. The value of these shares is estimated at around 6.4 billion USD.
Kingdom Holding is one of the largest investment groups in Saudi Arabia with an investment portfolio valued at 19 billion USD (as of the end of 2024). The company strategically allocates assets into three main sectors: stocks and financial investments, hotels, and real estate. The portfolio is spread across 18 smaller sectors, ranging from financial services, entertainment, aviation, energy to artificial intelligence, education, and healthcare.
In addition to his shares in Kingdom Holding, Prince Alwaleed also owns various domestic real estate assets, the media group Rotana, and 1.5% of Snap Inc. – the parent company of Snapchat.
Notably, in 2022, Saudi's Public Investment Fund (PIF) bought 16.9% of Kingdom Holding's shares from him for 1.6 billion USD.
Multi-industry investment
In technology, Kingdom Holding is the second-largest shareholder of social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and Elon Musk's company xAI. The company also invests in giants like Meta, Uber, Didi, Lyft, and other technology platforms.
Last year, Kingdom Holding increased its investment in xAI to 800 million USD through Series B and C funding rounds. Prince Alwaleed was an early supporter of Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter in 2022 and continued to place significant bets when Musk announced the merger of X and xAI in March this year, valuing the new company at 125 billion USD.
Alwaleed predicts that his investment in this joint venture could reach between 4 to 5 billion USD in the near future.
The hotel sector accounts for nearly 31% of the investment portfolio, including 23.7% shares in Four Seasons – a result of a long-standing joint venture with billionaire Bill Gates' investment fund. This proportion was once 47.5% but the prince sold half to Gates for 2.21 billion USD in 2021.
Additionally, Kingdom Holding also owns 6.8% of Accor – the French hotel group that has more than 40 famous brands such as Fairmont, Raffles, and Sofitel.
In the financial sector, Alwaleed's historic investment in Citigroup since 1991 with 800 million USD once brought a value of 10 billion USD in 2005. Currently, Kingdom Holding holds 1.06% of Citigroup shares and is the largest shareholder of Banque Saudi Fransi (BSF) with 16.2%, equivalent to about 1.8 billion USD.
Real estate accounts for 25.9% of the investment portfolio, including iconic projects such as Kingdom Centre in Riyadh and Jeddah Tower – a building expected to exceed 1,000 meters, becoming the tallest building in the world. The total value of related contracts is 1.9 billion USD, not to mention the 35.74% stake in Jeddah Economic Company with total investment.
Aviation is one of the key investment highlights of Kingdom Holding. The company holds 37.2% of the low-cost airline Flynas, which currently operates 61 aircraft. According to Prince Alwaleed's announcement on social media X, Flynas will IPO on the Saudi exchange (Tadawul) this year with a goal of raising at least 2 billion USD.
In the healthcare sector, Kingdom Holding owns 4.9% of Dallah Health and operates Kingdom Hospital along with consulting clinics. This sector accounts for about 2.2% of the investment portfolio.
In education, the group holds 89.8% of Kingdom School System shares, which recorded a 14% increase in student enrollment last year – indicating this is a promising sector that is being focused on for long-term investment.
