Former President Donald Trump's Bedminster and Doral Golf Clubs will host LIV golf events. His son-in-law Jared Kushner's private equity firm Affinity Partners received billions from LIV's owner, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund headed by the murderous Saudi Crown Prince.
Trump wrote on his social media site:
"All of those golfers that remain 'loyal' to the very disloyal PGA, in all of its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you get nothing but a big 'thank you' from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year," Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday. "If you don't take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were."
Ethically challenged Trump ignored a letter from families of 9/11 victims urging him to cancel the
tournament, citing LIV Golf's Saudi ownership.
Ethics are passe and no one declares conflicts of interest anymore. Trump sells LIV Golf to his and his family's benefit. Thugs win.
Update 7-20-22: The field for LIV Golf's Bedminister event is set with three open spots for new players willing to take dirty Saudi money.
Update 8-3-22: One story
got the mean greed vibe but did not explore the possible role of Jared
Kushner's Affinity Partners in LIV Golf. Is Jared coaching Affinity
Partners' affiliate LIV Golf alongside former Bush spokesman Ari
Fleischer? The Trump team's disregard for the law can be seen in its Mafia-like behavior according to a former FBI official.
Update 8-16-22: Bad leadership world wide means lots more opportunities to get one's undies in a wad and resort to violence. Trump's undies have a quick wad trigger that unleashes his ceaseless retaliatory impulse.
A Saudi woman studying at Leeds University was sentenced to 34 years in prison for using Twitter to follow and retweet activists and dissidents. The World Economic Forum ran a piece on using AI to reign in abuse on the internet:
By bringing human-curated, multi-language, off-platform intelligence into learning sets, AI will then be able to detect nuanced, novel online abuses at scale, before they reach mainstream platforms.I imagine the Crown Prince would be most interested in such technology.
Update 8-17-22: The Saudi Crown Prince already has such an app. Someone "reported her on the Saudi app, which is called Kollona Amn, or We Are All Security."
Her alleged crimes including using a website to “cause public unrest” and “assisting those who seek to cause public unrest and destabilise civil and national security by following their Twitter accounts” and by retweeting their tweets.The World Economic Forum welcomed the Saudi Crown Prince in 2018 and now appears to endorse something similar to his security app.
Update 9-14-22: Trump's Sterling, Virginia golf course will host LIV Golf in May 2023. It will be the third LIV event at a Trump owned course.
Update 4-9-25: Saudi sponsored golf was not a hit, even at a Trump course with Trump in attendance:Will Trump tariffs kill LIV Golf?
The numbers are in for LIV Golf's major broadcast TV debut and they aren't good. Sunday's final round, aired on Fox and featuring some of LIV's biggest names in the hunt — Sergio Garcia, Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson — garnered an audience of just 484,000 viewers.
Update 8-19-26: Golf Digest reported as LIV Golf limps toward the early end of its season:
The financial uncertainty traces to April, when Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund abruptly withdrew its support. Yasir Al-Rumayyan—the PIF governor, architect of LIV Golf and then-chairman of the league's board—stepped down at the same time. PIF had unveiled its strategy for 2026 through 2030, signaling a shift toward domestic priorities as the kingdom confronts mounting commitments tied to World Expo 2030 and the 2034 FIFA World Cup. The war with Iran added to those pressures, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz cutting Saudi oil exports nearly in half. LIV was conspicuously absent from PIF's stated plans. By then, the fund was believed to have poured between $6 billion and $8 billion into the league.
The Saudis will have to find another way to funnel money to Trump II, that is if they want to keep supporting his wealth expansion.