Mohammed bin Salman Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

On 31 August 1985, Mohammed bin Salman is born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Family

Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud was born on 31 August 1985 to Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz and his third spouse, Fahda bint Falah Al Hithlain.

Fahda is a granddaughter of Rakan bin Hithlain, who was the  head of the Al Ajman tribe.

Childhood and youth

Bin Salman is the eldest among his mother's children and is the eighth child and seventh son of his father; his full siblings include Turki bin Salman, former chairman of the Saudi Research and

Marketing Group and Khalid bin Salman.

Prince Mohammed holds a bachelor's degree in law from King Saud University.

A job

After graduating from college, bin Salman spent several years in the private sector before becoming a personal aide to his father. He worked as a consultant for the Experts Commission, working for the Saudi Cabinet.

On 15 December 2009, at the age of 24, he entered politics as a special advisor to his father when the latter was the governor of Riyadh Province.

At this time bin Salman began to rise from one position to another, such as secretary-general of the Riyadh Competitive Council, special advisor to the chairman of the board for the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives, and a member of the board of trustees for Albir Society in the Riyadh region.

In October 2011, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz died. Prince Salman began his ascent to power by becoming Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. He made his son Mohammed his private advisor. 

A rise to power 

In June 2012, Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz died and bin Salman moved up into the number two position in the hierarchy, as his father became the new crown prince and first deputy prime minister. He soon began remaking the court in his own image. 

On 2 March 2013, the chief of the Crown Prince court, Prince Saud bin Nayef, was appointed governor of the Eastern Province and bin Salman succeeded him in the post. He was also given the rank of minister.

On 25 April 2014, bin Salman was appointed state minister.

On 23 January 2015, King Abdullah died and Salman ascended the throne. Bin Salman was appointed minister of defence and secretary general of the Royal Court. In addition, he retained his post as the minister of state.

In Yemen, the political unrest (which began escalating in 2011) rapidly became a major issue for the newly appointed minister of defence, with Houthis taking control of northern Yemen in late 2014, followed by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and his cabinet's resignation. Bin Salman's first move
as minister was to mobilise a pan-GCC coalition to intervene following a series of suicide bombings in Sana'a via air strikes against Houthis, and impose a naval blockade. 

In March 2015, Saudi Arabia began leading a coalition of countries allied against the Houthi rebels.While there was agreement among those Saudi princes heading security services regarding the necessity of a response to the Houthis' seizure of Sana'a, which had forced the Yemeni government into exile, bin Salman launched the intervention without full coordination across security services. Saudi National Guard minister Prince Mutaib bin Abdullah, who was out of the country, was left out of the
loop of operations. While bin Salman sold the war as a quick win on Houthi rebels in Yemen
and a way to put President Hadi back in power, however, it became a long war of attrition.

In April 2015, King Salman appointed his nephew Muhammad bin Nayef as Crown Prince and his son

Mohammed bin Salman as Deputy Crown Prince.

In late 2015, at a meeting between his father and U.S. President Barack Obama, bin Salman broke protocol to deliver a monologue criticising U.S. foreign policy. When he announced an anti-terrorist military alliance of Islamic countries in December 2015, some of the countries involved said they had not been consulted.

Regarding his role in the military intervention, bin Salman gave his first on-the-record interview on 4 January 2016 to The Economist, which had called him the "architect of the war in Yemen". Denying the title, he explained the mechanism of the decision-making institutions actually holding stakes in
the intervention, including the council of security and political affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the Saudi side. He added that the Houthis usurped power in the Yemeni capital Sana'a before he served as minister of defence.

In response to the threat from ISIL, bin Salman established the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC), a Saudi-led Islamic alliance against terrorism, in December 2015.The IMCTC's first meeting took place in Riyadh in November 2017 and involved defence ministers and officials from
41 countries.

Bin Salman was appointed Crown Prince on 21 June 2017, following his father's decision to depose bin Nayef, making him heir presumptive to the throne.

The change of succession had been predicted in December 2015 by an unusually blunt and public memo published by the German Federal Intelligence Service, which was subsequently rebuked by the
German government.

On the day bin Salman became Crown Prince, U.S. President Donald Trump called him to "congratulate him on his recent elevation". Trump and the new crown prince pledged "close cooperation" on security
and economic issues, according to the White House, and the two leaders also discussed the need to cut off support for terrorism, the recent diplomatic dispute with Qatar, and the push to secure peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Bin Salman told the Washington Post in April 2017  that without America's cultural influence on Saudi Arabia, "we would have ended up like North Korea."

Love and Marriage

On 6 April 2008 bin Salman married his first cousin Sara bint Mashour, a daughter of his paternal uncle Mashour bin Abdulaziz. Prince Mohammed and Princess Sara have five children; the first four were named after their grandparents, and the fifth one is named after his great-grandfather King Abdulaziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia.

Wealth

In 2018 his personal net worth was estimated at US$3.0 billion. In 2015, bin Salman purchased the Italian-built and Bermuda-registered yacht Serene from Russian vodka tycoon Yuri Shefler for €500 million. In 2015, he purchased the Chateau Louis XIV in France for over $300 million.

In December 2017, a number of sources reported that bin Salman, using his close associate Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Farhan as an intermediary, had bought the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci; the sale in November at $450.3 million set a new record price for a work of art.

Newcastle

In October 2021, it was released that Mohammed bin Salman bought the footballclub Newcastle for around 300 million pounds. He took over a  80 % stake. More on this link. 

Traveling

Bin Salman has travelled extensively around the world, meeting with politicians, business leaders and celebrities. In June 2016, he travelled to Silicon Valley and met key people in the US high tech industry, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

In early 2018, he visited the United States, where he met many politicians, business people and Hollywood stars, including then-President Trump, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Michael Bloomberg, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey, Rupert Murdoch, Richard Branson, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman,
and Dwayne Johnson. Trump praised his relationship with bin Salman.

The prince also visited the United Kingdom, where he met with Prime Minister Theresa May,
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William.

Source pictures Wikipedia