What Happened and Why It Matters Several high-profile political and business leaders have dropped out or withdrawn sponsorship of Saudi Arabia's "Davos in the Desert" Foreign Investment Initiative (FII) conference, citing the ongoing investigation into the disappearance and suspected death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The event is set for Oct. 23-25 in Riyadh, and there have been an increasing number of accusations that the conference's main sponsor, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was involved in the incident. Like its 2017 iteration, the FII is designed to spur foreign investor interest into the Saudi government's many Vision 2030 projects . Courting foreign investment is all the more important to Riyadh right now, since levels of foreign direct investment were lackluster through 2017 and most of 2018.