Utkarsh @UtkarshTiwxri - Twitter Profile

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29 days ago

A masterclass in the collision between visionary marketing and physical reality - The NEOM Project. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman explicitly pitched NEOM as the "most ambitious project on earth." He wanted a blank slate to build a post-oil economy from the ground up. > The master plan broke this vision into massive, distinct regions. It included The Line (a linear city), Oxagon (a floating industrial port), Trojena (a mountain ski resort), Sindalah (a luxury island), and Magna (coastal eco-destinations). > Early marketing leaned on massive inflated numbers to grab global attention and secure foreign direct investment. The Line alone was supposed to stretch 170 kilometers and house 9 million people by 2030. > Reality hit the timeline hard. Planners recently scaled The Line back to just 2.4 kilometers of completed structure by 2030, capping the expected population at roughly 300,000. > Building all these regions at once requires staggering amounts of cash. Financial models show Saudi Arabia needs oil prices to stay around $90 to $100 per barrel just to fund Vision 2030 initiatives without draining cash reserves or taking on too much sovereign debt. > When oil dips below that $90 mark, the Public Investment Fund has to throttle spending and prioritize which massive projects actually get built. > Buying materials for a 170-kilometer mirrored skyscraper breaks the global supply chain. You cannot just order that much glass and steel without cornering the market. > Trying to procure those materials causes a self-inflicted supply shock. The project drives up raw material costs so fast that it sabotages its own budget before the foundations are even poured. > Oxagon and The Line rely on technology that barely exists outside of labs. Building a physical city on top of unproven automated logistics and next-generation desalination means any delay in R&D immediately stops the cement mixers. > Trojena promises artificial snow for the 2029 Asian Winter Games in a desert environment. Maintaining that snow requires massive baseline power, fighting directly against the mandate to run the entire region on 100% renewable energy. > The Line's giant mirrored walls will bounce severe heat into the surrounding area. Managing this localized thermal dynamic requires immense cooling infrastructure that traditional urban planning rarely has to handle. > Sindalah is the only zone actually hitting its targets right now. This is highly telling, as the island works simply because it relies on standard luxury real estate playbooks rather than experimental urban engineering. Sovereign wealth funds can ignore traditional investment rules for a while, but they cannot ignore physics. NEOM skipped the phase where developers test a small-scale model first, pouring billions into the dirt before realizing the original blueprints were financially and logistically impossible to build all at once.

UtkarshTiwxri's tweet photo. A masterclass in the collision between visionary marketing and physical reality - The NEOM Project.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman explicitly pitched NEOM as the "most ambitious project on earth." He wanted a blank slate to build a post-oil economy from the ground up.

> The master plan broke this vision into massive, distinct regions. It included The Line (a linear city), Oxagon (a floating industrial port), Trojena (a mountain ski resort), Sindalah (a luxury island), and Magna (coastal eco-destinations).

> Early marketing leaned on massive inflated numbers to grab global attention and secure foreign direct investment. The Line alone was supposed to stretch 170 kilometers and house 9 million people by 2030.

> Reality hit the timeline hard. Planners recently scaled The Line back to just 2.4 kilometers of completed structure by 2030, capping the expected population at roughly 300,000.

> Building all these regions at once requires staggering amounts of cash. Financial models show Saudi Arabia needs oil prices to stay around $90 to $100 per barrel just to fund Vision 2030 initiatives without draining cash reserves or taking on too much sovereign debt.

> When oil dips below that $90 mark, the Public Investment Fund has to throttle spending and prioritize which massive projects actually get built.

> Buying materials for a 170-kilometer mirrored skyscraper breaks the global supply chain. You cannot just order that much glass and steel without cornering the market.

> Trying to procure those materials causes a self-inflicted supply shock. The project drives up raw material costs so fast that it sabotages its own budget before the foundations are even poured.

> Oxagon and The Line rely on technology that barely exists outside of labs. Building a physical city on top of unproven automated logistics and next-generation desalination means any delay in R&D immediately stops the cement mixers.

> Trojena promises artificial snow for the 2029 Asian Winter Games in a desert environment. Maintaining that snow requires massive baseline power, fighting directly against the mandate to run the entire region on 100% renewable energy.

> The Line's giant mirrored walls will bounce severe heat into the surrounding area. Managing this localized thermal dynamic requires immense cooling infrastructure that traditional urban planning rarely has to handle.

> Sindalah is the only zone actually hitting its targets right now. This is highly telling, as the island works simply because it relies on standard luxury real estate playbooks rather than experimental urban engineering.

Sovereign wealth funds can ignore traditional investment rules for a while, but they cannot ignore physics. NEOM skipped the phase where developers test a small-scale model first, pouring billions into the dirt before realizing the original blueprints were financially and logistically impossible to build all at once.

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