Jamie Dimon Joins Growing List Of Business Leaders Skipping Saudi Conference

Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, and Bill Ford, chairman of the Ford Motor Co., are the latest business leaders to drop out of an investment conference in Saudi Arabia in the wake of the disappearance and presumed murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Khashoggi, a Saudi reporter and columnist for The Washington Post, has not been seen since entering the Saudi consulate in Turkey earlier this month. He was a known critic of Saudi policies, and Turkish authorities claim he was killed inside the building.

Following his disappearance, business executives and media organizations began dropping out of the the Future Investment Initiative conference, which is scheduled to begin Oct. 23 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The economic summit is intended to highlight Saudi Arabia’s role in global business.

CNBC reported Dimon’s withdrawal Sunday from the conference, known as “Davos in the Desert,” saying the bank had told anchor Wilfred Frost about the change in plans. No specific reasons were given.

Earlier in the day, Reuters reported that Ford would not be attending the conference.

Others who have said they will not attend:

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
Viacom Chief Executive Bob Bakish
Billionaire Steve Case, one of the founders of AOL
Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong
HP executive Joanna Popper
Arianna Huffington, who sits on Uber’s board and runs a consulting firm called Thrive Global.(Huffington is no longer affiliated with HuffPost.)
Media companies that have said they will not be participating include:

Bloomberg
CNBC
CNN
The Economist
Financial Times
Nikkei
The New York Times.
Among those still scheduled to attend (as of Sunday night):

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
Christine Lagarde, chairwoman of the International Monetary Fund