Trump’s tariffs closed out the week as the dominant story, and they’re not done yet. The Supreme Court ruling and the president’s still-evolving response will set the tone for markets in the days ahead.
But for the Middle East, Gulf investors rode out sharp swings in US equities and digital assets in the fourth quarter, as private bets on frontier technology increasingly offset turbulence in listed markets.
The pullback was visible in listed holdings as the year ended, regulatory filings show. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund saw about $3.47 billion erased from its US stock portfolio as shares in Lucid Group and Uber retreated, trimming the portfolio to $12.95 billion from $16.42 billion a quarter earlier. There were no major exits: the only notable shift was the transfer of its roughly $2.95 billion stake in Take-Two Interactive to gaming subsidiary Savvy Games Group.
In Abu Dhabi, crypto volatility did little to deter buyers. Mubadala Investment Company and a unit of the Abu Dhabi Investment Council increased their exposure to the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF even as Bitcoin plunged, expanding positions whose market value lagged the pace of additional purchases.
If public markets delivered the bruises, private tech delivered the upside.
Kuwait’s Zain Group turned a roughly $50 million stake in SpaceX into about $80 million in unrealized gains, buoyed by the rocket-maker’s tie-up with xAI. (Zain isn’t alone on Musk’s interplanetary guest list. Abu Dhabi’s International Holding Company and Alpha Dhabi Holding got in early too.)
Then came Humain. The Saudi AI investor deployed $3 billion into Musk’s xAI. It joins Abu Dhabi’s MGX and Qatar Investment Authority in backing the AI startup — underscoring how Gulf capital is treating artificial intelligence as a strategic asset class rather than a cyclical trade. MGX, which has already backed OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, reportedly plans to invest up to $10 billion annually in select companies over the coming years, moving the region’s AI push from opportunistic bets to programmatic allocation.
Qatar Investment Authority also co-led a $350 million round for Axiom Space, helping finance a future commercial space station and lunar infrastructure.
📌Deals and Debt:
- Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund bought into the owner of Haagen-Dazs ice creams last year. It may now get an opportunity to deepen that bet.
- Ooredoo Group is spinning off its international fibre and subsea cable assets into a standalone unit as the Qatari telecom operator positions for a surge in AI-driven data traffic between Europe and Asia.
📌Company News:
- Modon Holding, controlled by an Abu Dhabi sovereign investor, is aiming to convert its $12.5 billion backlog this year as it accelerates plans to scale into an international real estate player.
- Moody’s has opened a regional headquarters in Riyadh, deepening its footprint in the Middle East as multinational companies expand in Saudi Arabia to tap into the kingdom’s economic overhaul.
- Dubai-based ports operator DP World agreed to sell a minority stake in a key Saudi Arabian container terminal to APM Terminals, as it deepens its push to expand capacity and integrated logistics in the kingdom.
- Stake, the digital property investment platform, raised $31 million in a funding round led by Dubai’s largest bank and backed by an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, as it seeks to scale its cross-border property investment offering.
📌People News:
- Emirates GroupCFO Michael Doersam will step down by the end of June, marking a senior leadership change at one of the world’s largest long-haul carriers. Separately, Steve Allen, the chief executive of ground-handling unit Dnata, is also set to leave in June.
📌Top Reads From Web
- Saudi Arabia loosens some restrictions during Ramadan (Semafor)
- US planning on Iran at advanced stage with options to target individuals (Reuters)
- Saudi-owned Scopely to take stake in Turkey’s Loom Games for $1 billion (Bloomberg)
- Abu Dhabi’s ADIA, Temasek planning to invest in Clean Max’s India IPO (Bloomberg)
- Qatar Airways’ new CEO is prioritizing better relations with Airbus (Bloomberg)
- UK renews push for Saudi Arabia to invest in fighter jet program (Bloomberg)
