Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks, as he sits with Saudi Minister of Communications and Information Technology Abdullah Alswaha, at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025.
Hamad I Mohammed | Reuters
Elon Musk said Saudi Arabia has approved Starlink for aviation and maritime use in the region, speaking at an investment forum during a White House-led trip to the kingdom on Tuesday.
Starlink is the satellite internet service owned and operated by Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor, SpaceX.
SpaceX recently began offering its Starlink hardware for free outside the U.S. in a bid to win new subscribers.
Musk also briefly discussed his other business ambitions in the region, promising to bring Tesla robotaxis to Saudi Arabia at an unspecified date.
“I think it would be very exciting to have autonomous vehicles here in the kingdom, indeed, if you’re amenable,” Musk said.
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Musk also said he showed several of Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots, now in development, to Trump and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Tesla has been telling investors for years that self-driving cars and humanoid robots are the key to its future profits.
Tesla’s Optimus is not yet in production and competition abounds in humanoid robotics.
The Tuesday event featured President Donald Trump and U.S. tech executives from companies involved in artificial intelligence, defense and semiconductor manufacturing.
At the same event, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the U.S. chipmaker will sell over 18,000 of its latest artificial intelligence chips to Saudi Arabian company Humain.
The Trump and tech executives’ visit to Saudi Arabia comes as the White House works to strike trade deals following the President’s sweeping, and ever-changing, trade and tariff policies.
Trump received a lavish welcome from the oil power, and secured a $600 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the U.S. on Tuesday. He also agreed to sell Saudi Arabia an arms package worth nearly $142 billion, the White House said in a statement.
In addition to his collection of companies, Musk has been a key adviser to Trump, running the Department of Government Efficiency, an initiative where he has steeply slashed jobs, regulations, funding and other resources at federal agencies, including those tasked with oversight of his businesses.
Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding Company and the private office of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal own a stake in Elon Musk’s newest major venture, xAI, which he recently merged with X (formerly Twitter).
In 2022, when Musk led a leveraged buyout of the social network now known as X, Senate Democrats had called for investigations into Saudi Arabia’s role in that deal citing national security concerns.
