Biography and Wiki
Mohammed bin Salman, born on August 31, 1985, is the eldest son of King Salman bin Abdulaziz and his third wife, Fahdah bint Falāḥ ibn Sulṭān Al Hithlain. His maternal lineage includes prominent leaders of the Al Ajman tribe, adding historical significance to his family background. He became Crown Prince in 2017 and also serves as the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia.
| Occupation | Prime Ministers |
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| Date of Birth | 31 August 1985 |
| Age | 39 Years |
| Birth Place | Riyadh, Saudi Arabia |
| Horoscope | Virgo |
| Country | Saudi Arabia |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There is limited public information available about his physical measurements such as height and weight.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Mohammed bin Salman is married to Princess Sarah bint Mashhoor bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The couple has several children together.
Mohammed is the first child of King Salman bin Abdulaziz and his third wife, Fahda bint Falah Al Hithlain. After obtaining a law degree from King Saud University, he became an advisor to his father in 2009. He was appointed deputy crown prince and defense minister after his father became king in 2015, then promoted to crown prince in 2017. Mohammed succeeded his father as prime minister in 2022.
He is the eldest of his mother's six children and the eighth child and seventh son of his father. His full siblings include Prince Turki and Defense Minister Prince Khalid. Mohammed holds a bachelor's degree in law from King Saud University, where he graduated second in his class.
After graduating from university, Mohammed spent several years in the private sector before becoming an aide to his father. He worked as a consultant for the Experts Commission, working for the Saudi Cabinet. On 15 December 2009, at the age of 24, he entered politics as a special advisor to his father when the latter was the governor of Riyadh Province. At this time, Mohammed began to move from one position to another, such as secretary-general of the Riyadh Competitive Council, special advisor to the chairman of the board for the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives, and a member of the board of trustees for Albir Society in the Riyadh region. In October 2011, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz died. Prince Salman began his ascent to power by becoming second deputy prime minister and minister of defence. He made Mohammed his private advisor.
In June 2012, Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz died. Mohammed moved up into the number two position in the hierarchy, as his father became the new crown prince and first deputy prime minister. On 2 March 2013, Chief of the Crown Prince Court Saud bin Nayef Al Saud was appointed governor of the Eastern Province, and Mohammed succeeded him as chief of the court. He was also given the rank of minister. On 25 April 2014, Mohammed was appointed state minister.
In April 2015, King Salman appointed his nephew Muhammad bin Nayef as crown prince and his son Mohammed as deputy crown prince. In late 2015, at a meeting between his father and Barack Obama, Mohammed bin Salman broke protocol to deliver a monologue criticising US foreign policy. When he announced an anti-terrorist military alliance of Islamic countries in December 2015, some countries involved said they had not been consulted.
In 2016, Mohammed took steps to drastically curtail the powers of the "Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" (CPVPV), or Islamic religious police. The "feared" CPVPV, which had thousands of officers on the streets and powers to arrest, detain, and interrogate those suspected of violating sharia, was banned "from pursuing, questioning, asking for identification, arresting and detaining anyone suspected of a crime". The cinema industry was reinstated, social liberties were expanded, gender mixing and dating have been normalised by the state in the public sphere. Schmidt-Feuerheerd argues that the new state policies are also accompanied by an increasing clampdown on political and religious activities independent of the government.
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| Husband | Sara bint Mashour Al Saud (m. 2008) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Mohammed bin Salman's net worth is estimated to be around $25 billion. His wealth is derived from his control over vast state and family-held assets, including investments in sovereign wealth funds, real estate, and stakes in major global companies.
Another hypothesis was that the purge was part of a move towards reform. Steven Mufson of The Washington Post argues that Mohammed "knows that only if he can place the royal family under the law, and not above as it was in the past, can he ask the whole country to change their attitudes relative to taxes [and] subsidies." An analysis from the CBC claimed that "the clampdown against corruption resonates with ordinary Saudis who feel that the state has been asking them to accept belt tightening while, at the same time, they see corruption and the power elite accumulating more wealth". Mohammed's reform agenda is widely supported by Saudi Arabia's burgeoning youth population, but faces resistance from some of the old guard more comfortable with the kingdom's traditions of incremental change and rule by consensus. According to a former British ambassador to Riyadh, Mohammed "is the first prince in modern Saudi history whose constituency has not been within the royal family, it's outside it. It's been young Saudis, particularly younger Saudi men in the street".
Career, Business, and Investments
Mohammed bin Salman's career began with his education in law at King Saud University in Riyadh. He established several companies and a nonprofit organization focused on promoting entrepreneurship within Saudi Arabia. By 2009, he became an official adviser to his father, who was then the governor of Riyadh. In 2015, he became the Minister of Defense and initiated the ambitious Vision 2030 economic plan for Saudi Arabia.
He exercises significant control over the $700 billion Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, which has been instrumental in diversifying the country's economy through strategic investments in various sectors, including technology and infrastructure. His influence extends to sports, media, and energy, further solidifying Saudi Arabia's global presence.
Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (born 31 August 1985), also known as MBS or MbS, is the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, formally serving as Crown Prince and Prime Minister. He is the heir apparent to the Saudi throne, the seventh son of King Salman of Saudi Arabia, and the grandson of the nation's founder, Ibn Saud.
Since his appointment as crown prince in 2017, Mohammed has introduced a series of social and economic reforms; these include curtailing the influence of the Wahhabi religious establishment by restricting the powers of the religious police and improving women's rights, removing the ban on female drivers in 2018, and weakening the male-guardianship system in 2019. However, he also continues to repress women's rights activists. His Saudi Vision 2030 program aims to reduce the Saudi economy's reliance on oil through investment in other sectors such as technology and tourism. Despite these attempts at greater economic diversification, the Saudi economy remains heavily reliant on oil.
Under Mohammed, Saudi Arabia has pursued an "aggressive" foreign policy aimed at increasing the country's regional and international influence and attracting greater foreign investment. The Kingdom has coordinated energy policy with Russia, strengthened its relations with China, and expanded diplomatic and commercial relations with emerging economies and regional powers in Africa, South America, and Asia. Mohammed was the architect of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen and was involved in the escalation of the Qatar diplomatic crisis, as well as a 2018 diplomatic dispute with Canada.
The political unrest in Yemen (which began escalating in 2011) rapidly became a major issue for the newly appointed minister of defence, with Houthis taking control of northern Yemen in late 2014, followed by the resignation of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and his cabinet. Mohammed's first move as minister was to mobilise a pan-GCC coalition to intervene following a series of suicide bombings in the Yemeni capital Sana'a via air strikes against Houthis, and impose a naval blockade. In March 2015, Saudi Arabia began leading a coalition of countries allied against the Houthi rebels. While there was agreement among those Saudi princes heading security services regarding the necessity of a response to the Houthis' seizure of Sana'a, which had forced the Yemeni government into exile, Mohammed launched the intervention without full coordination across security services. Saudi National Guard minister Mutaib bin Abdullah Al Saud, who was out of the country, was left out of the loop of operations. While Mohammed sold the war as a quick win on Houthi rebels in Yemen and a way to put President Hadi back in power, however, it became a long war of attrition.
The purge helped centralize political powers in the hands of Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman and undermine the pre-existing structure of consensus-based governance among Saudi elites. The arrests resulted in the final sidelining of the faction of King Abdullah, and Mohammed bin Salman's complete consolidation of control of all three branches of the security forces. It also cemented bin Salman's supremacy over business elites in Saudi Arabia and resulted in a mass seizure of assets by the bin Salman regime.
Robert W. Jordan, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said that "certainly Saudi Arabia has had a corruption problem for many years. I think the population, especially, has been very unhappy with princes coming in and grabbing business deals, with public funds going to flood control projects that never seem to get built... I would also say it's a classical power grab move sometimes to arrest your rivals, your potential rivals under the pretext of corruption".
Social Network
Mohammed bin Salman is not known for having a personal social media presence but is often featured in news and media outlets due to his political and economic influence.
Mohammed leads an authoritarian government. Those regarded as political dissidents are systematically repressed through methods including imprisonment and torture; citizens face arrest for social media posts that mildly criticise government policies. Between 2017 and 2019, he led the purge of competing Saudi political and economic elites, alleging that they were involved in corruption and seizing up to US$800 billion in assets and cash and cementing control over Saudi politics. A 2021 report by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) found that Mohammed had ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
On 23 January 2015, King Abdullah died and Salman ascended the throne. Mohammed was appointed minister of defence and secretary general of the royal court. In addition, he retained his post as the minister of state.
On the day Mohammed bin Salman became crown prince, US president Donald Trump called him to "congratulate him on his recent elevation". Trump and Mohammed pledged "close cooperation" on security and economic issues, according to the White House, and the two leaders also discussed the need to cut off support for terrorism, the recent diplomatic dispute with Qatar, and the push to secure peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Mohammed told The Washington Post in April 2017 that without America's cultural influence on Saudi Arabia, "we would have ended up like North Korea."
In May 2017, Mohammed launched a purge against competing Saudi business and political elites under the auspices of anti-corruption. He said, "no one will survive in a corruption case—whoever he is, even if he's a prince or a minister". In November 2017, he ordered some 200 wealthy businessmen and princes to be placed under house arrest in The Ritz-Carlton, Riyadh. On 4 November 2017, the Saudi press announced the arrest of the Saudi prince and billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal, a frequent English-language news commentator and a major shareholder in Citi, News Corp and Twitter, as well as over 40 princes and government ministers at the behest of the Crown Prince on corruption and money laundering charges. Others arrested or fired in the purge included Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, head of the Saudi Arabian National Guard; Minister of Economy and Planning Adel Fakeih; and the commander of the Royal Saudi Navy, Admiral Abdullah bin Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Sultan.
The New York Times wrote: The sweeping campaign of arrests appears to be the latest move to consolidate the power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the favorite son and top adviser of King Salman. The king had decreed the creation of a powerful new anticorruption committee, headed by the crown prince, only hours before the committee ordered the arrests. Writing for The Huffington Post, University of Delaware professor of Islam and Global Affairs, Muqtedar Khan, speculated as to whether the removal of Al-Waleed bin Talal, a critic of Donald Trump, amounted to a coup. BBC correspondent Frank Gardner was quoted as saying that "Prince Mohammed is moving to consolidate his growing power while spearheading a reform programme". Yet "[i]t is not clear what those detained are suspected of."
Mohammed heads a repressive authoritarian government in Saudi Arabia. Human rights activists and women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia have faced abuse and torture by the regime. Critics, journalists and former insiders are tortured and killed. The government has targeted Saudi dissidents who are located abroad. Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist of The Washington Post, was murdered by the regime. Mohammed has justified the mass arrests of human rights activists as being as necessary for enacting reforms in Saudi Arabia and for establishing a state based on Arab nationalism.
Education
Mohammed bin Salman completed his bachelor's degree in law from King Saud University in Riyadh in 2007. His educational background has played a significant role in shaping his career as a leader in Saudi Arabia's government.
In a 2018 interview with The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, Mohammed stated regarding his basic approach to religion in Saudi Arabian society: "'We believe we have, in Saudi Arabia, Sunni and Shiite. We believe we have within Sunni Islam four schools of thought, and we have the ulema [the religious authorities] and the Board of Fatwas [which issues religious rulings]... our laws are coming from Islam and the Qur'an, but we have the four schools—Hanbali, Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki—and they argue about interpretation. And you will find a Shiite in the cabinet, you will find Shiites in government, the most important university in Saudi Arabia is headed by a Shiite. So we believe that we are a mix of Muslim schools and sects.'"
Mohammed has stated that "in Islamic law, the head of the Islamic establishment is wali al-amr (Arabic: وَلِيّ الأمر ), the ruler. While Saudi rulers "have historically stayed away from religion", and "outsourced" issues of theology and religious law to "the big beards", traditionally conservative and orthodox religious scholars, Mohammed has "a law degree from King Saud University" and "flaunts his knowledge and dominance over the clerics", according to Graeme Wood. He is "probably the only leader in the Arab world who knows anything about Islamic epistemology and jurisprudence", according to American historian Professor Bernard Haykel. In an interview televised in Saudi Arabia on 25 April 2021, Mohammed criticised the devotion of Saudi religious leaders to Wahhabi doctrines "in language never before used by a Saudi monarch", saying "there are no fixed schools of thought and there is no infallible person", and that fatwas "should be based on the time, place and mindset in which they are issued", rather than regarded as immutable.
