WASHINGTON (Middle East Eye) – A Washington-based human rights group is calling on the U.S. government to investigate the business dealings between the Saudi-financed LIV Golf tour and former U.S. president Donald Trump, who hosted a series of LIV golf tournaments at his resorts last year.
The demand for a probe into the business dealings comes after it was stated in a court hearing last week that the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF) owns 93 percent of LIV and pays all of the costs associated with its events.
While LIV had already disclosed that the PIF was its majority shareholder, the court hearing - in which LIV Golf and several professional golfers are suing the PGA Tour - was the first to mention the full extent of the investment fund’s ownership.
The claim was made during the hearing by the lead counsel to the PGA Tour, according to Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn).
Middle East Eye reached out to LIV Golf and the Trump Organization for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
“The revelation that a fund controlled by Crown Prince MBS actually owns almost all of LIV Golf means that MBS has been paying Donald Trump unknown millions for the past two years, via their mutual corporate covers,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Dawn’s executive director, said in a statement.
“The national security implications of payments from a grotesquely abusive foreign dictator to a president of the United States who provided extraordinary favors to him are as dangerous as they are shocking.”
The PIF is at the centre of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to remake the kingdom’s economy and diversify away from petrodollars and is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Dawn raised further concerns about whether Trump had engaged in business deals with Saudi Arabia’s PIF while he was in office.
Congress has already been scrutinizing the business dealings of former Trump officials, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner who received a $2.5bn investment in his firm, Affinity Partners, from the Saudi government.
The New York Times also reported in November 2022 that the Trump Organization had inked a deal with a Saudi-based real estate firm to license its name for a housing and golf complex in Oman. The real estate endeavor is reportedly worth $1.6bn.