Trump’s trillion-dollar AI handshake

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Morning friend ☕️

Last week was an exciting one in the tech and AI world.

Some of the world’s most powerful people met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Crown Prince MBS (Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud), U.S. President Donald Trump, and tech giants Elon Musk, Sam Altman (Open AI), Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Larry Fink (Blackrock), Andy Jassy (Amazon) and other top leaders gathered for an investment conference.

You know, as much as I don’t like Trump personally, as a manager, it’s hard to ignore some impressive results that he has delivered so far in his new term as president.

And the outcome of last week’s meeting is yet another impressive result delivered.

By end of the day, a $1 trillion joint plan crystallized.

This was politics, money, and new tech clicking together, speeding up the race toward an AI‑first future. Each side brings what the other needs:

• Saudi cash fuels U.S. AI technology and re-industrialization efforts.

• U.S. know‑how powers Saudi’s leap into an AI future and away from Oil dependency.

I was intrigued by this, and for today’s newsletter, I thought it would be great to apply the PESTLE model to analyse it’s impact.

If you haven’t heard of it, PESTLE is a strategic framework that helps you understand the macro factors that can influence your business operations and success.

A great tool to help you think more strategically.

Grab your coffee ☕️ 

Let’s chat!

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What is PESTLE?

It stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental factors.

Check out the mindtools link for details of the model and how it works.

Here’s what came up when analyzing the meeting:

• Political – Washington eased export rules; Riyadh fast‑tracked Starlink and robotaxi laws. Technology now has a policy tail‑wind.

• Economic – The initial $600 B lands in U.S. EV plants, AI fabs and critical‑minerals projects. Saudi capital suddenly fuels “America‑First” re‑industrialisation.

• Social – Vision 2030 promises 500 k tech jobs and Arabic‑first AI services, reshaping consumer expectations across the Middle East. US economy benefits from $1 trillion in Saudi capital.

• Technological – Saudi AI venture Humain bought 18 000 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs for a 500 MW “AI factory,” while AWS joined for a $5 B AI Zone.

• Legal – Easing restrictions make US-Saudi collaboration easier.

• Environmental – Green‑hydrogen and giga‑solar projects were folded into the same fund. Sustainability will ride AI’s investment wave.

PESTLE shows every macro lever snapping into place for the mutual benefit of the US, Saudi and the big Tech players.

Trump and MBS are greasing the wheels for mutual benefit: Saudi becomes a huge player in the AI world, and accelerates their Smart City plans with preferential access to US technology. US secures investment to reindustrialize itself and “become great again”.

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Key Takeaways

1. Alignment Speeds Everything Up – With rules, compute, and cash lined up, we can expect tech advancements to happen even faster, bringing the future here earlier. Change is happening ever faster.

2. Middle East becomes a new AI Power – Saudi’s Humain program means it aims to rival Silicon Valley and China in the AI space.

3. Hybrid Teams – We are speeding towards a future where AI will handle the routine work. Your new value as a manager is building and managing hybrid teams of people + ai agents/robots.

That’s it for today folks, hope you enjoyed this exploration of the US-Saudi AI deal using the PESTLE analysis.

Once again, a very handy tool to think strategically.

Zoom out and assess what is going in the broader context of your business and career.

Thanks for joining and till next week’s coffee chat!

Vaugan ☕️ 

Today’s Chess Puzzle

Black to mate in 2 moves…

Try to solve it here