LA Times owner drops out of Saudi conference after journalist goes missing

Pier Marco Tacca | Getty Images

COMO, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 07: Patrick Soon-Shiong President of Nantworks attends the Ambrosetti International Economic Forum 2018 on September 7, 2018 in Como, Italy. 

Billionaire philanthropist and owner of The Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, is the latest luminary to drop out of speaking at an investor conference in Saudi Arabia after the disappearance of a Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

“Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong will not be attending the upcoming Future Investment Initiative event in Riyadh,” a spokesman said in a statement provided to CNBC.

Soon-Shiong, who recently purchased the paper, is joining a growing list of media entities who are bowing out of attending the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, also known as “Davos in the desert.”

The New York Times said Wednesday it drop out of the conference. The Economist’s editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, and CNBC anchor and NYT columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin have also said they would not be participating this year.

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Other media outlets sponsoring the event include CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg and CNN.

The pullback by several media leaders comes amid suspicions that Khashoggi was murdered by Saudi operatives at their consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Saudi government has denied any wrongdoing. White House officials, including President Donald Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner, spoke with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Trump himself said Wednesday that he talked to Saudi officials “at the highest level.”

Khashoggi, a U.S. resident who had voluntarily exiled himself from Saudi Arabia, has been a vocal critic of the crown prince’s government.