Citigroup, Twitter, Lyft: Prince’s Arrest Touches Many<br />A former United States ambassador, Chas W. Freeman Jr., said it could be<br />that Prince Alwaleed “has been strongly identified in Saudi with civil society, which is by its very nature a counter to concentration of power.”<br />“He has a reputation,” Mr. Freeman said, “for being quite outspoken<br />and blunt and being critical of other parts of the royal family — and he’s not well liked.”<br />Others said they were surprised at the takedown of someone who has been an ambassador to international business.<br />The surprising arrests of Prince Alwaleed and other prominent figures in the private sector<br />and technocratic class, experts said, could shake investor confidence in Saudi Arabia as the kingdom tries to shed its image as an oil-dependent petrostate.<br />“I haven’t heard anything about Alwaleed being politically active in a way<br />that would threaten M. B.S.,” said F. Gregory Gause III, an expert on Saudi Arabia and a professor at Texas A&M University, referring to the crown prince by his initials.<br />HONG KONG — With the arrest of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the prominent billionaire investor,<br />Saudi Arabia has touched one of the richest and most influential investors in the world.<br />But despite his wealth, Prince Alwaleed was not seen as particularly powerful within<br />the Saudi royal family or as a threat to the crown prince’s consolidation of power.
