The Line Cost $8.8 Trillion. Saudi Arabia Said $1.5 Trillion.

A leaked internal audit obtained by the Wall Street Journal in 2024 revealed that The Line was not a $1.5 trillion project completing in 2030. It was an $8.8 trillion project with a realistic completion date of 2080. Saudi Arabia knew this and announced the lower figures anyway.

What the Internal NEOM Audit Actually Said

The audit contained three findings that directly contradicted the official narrative.

The projected cost was $8.8 trillion, nearly six times the $1.5 trillion figure Saudi Arabia had announced publicly. The cost per resident worked out to approximately $977,000 per person in construction costs alone, before any operating or maintenance expenses were factored in. That figure assumes all 9 million people actually moved in, which no credible model suggested would happen on the stated timeline.

The completion date was 2080, not 2030. The 2030 figure in Saudi communications referred to a first phase covering a fraction of the total structure, housing around 300,000 people at a cost still far above what had been announced. A complete, populated version of The Line was a 55-year project at best.

The population projections had no engineering basis. No city has ever been built from scratch to 9 million residents on that timeframe. The comparison points Saudi officials used publicly (Dubai, Singapore) were cities that grew over decades with existing populations and functioning economies. The Line had none of those foundations.

Why Saudi Arabia Announced $1.5 Trillion Anyway

The gap between $1.5 trillion and $8.8 trillion is not a rounding error. It was a deliberate choice about what to tell the world.

Vision 2030, the programme to modernise the Saudi economy, needed anchor projects that would attract international attention, foreign investment, and global talent. The Line served that function. An announcement of $8.8 trillion and a 2080 completion date would have raised immediate questions about whether the project was ever intended to be built. It would not have attracted investment. It would not have generated the global media coverage that Vision 2030 needed to signal seriousness.

The Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, was committing to NEOM as its flagship diversification project. Realistic cost figures would have triggered immediate scrutiny from institutional investors and international partners whose support the programme depended on.

What $50 Billion Actually Built

By September 2025, when construction was formally suspended, Saudi Arabia had spent approximately $50 billion. For that investment, the physical output on site amounts to: concrete foundation structures in the Tabuk region desert, tunnelling work on the underground transport corridor, site preparation across a portion of the 170km route, labour camp infrastructure for construction workers, and engineering and design contracts covering the full projected scope.

Nine million people are not living there. No functional section of the city exists. The 170km mirrored structure is not standing.

What Happens to the $50 Billion Already Spent

Most of it is unrecoverable. Infrastructure spending on a suspended megaproject is not like a failed startup where you liquidate assets and return cash. The concrete poured in the Saudi desert has no alternative use. The tunnelling work is specific to this site.

The DataVolt $5 billion AI data centre deal announced in February 2026 represents the strategy for recovering some value from the NEOM site. As we covered when the pivot was announced, the Oxagon district has real infrastructure: Red Sea coastal access for seawater cooling, existing grid connections, and proximity to Saudi renewable energy capacity. The location logic for AI data centres is sound even if the city logic never was.

Key Takeaways

• $8.8 trillion — the internal projected cost vs $1.5 trillion announced publicly
• 2080 — the realistic internal completion estimate vs 2030 announced publicly
• $977,000 — construction cost per resident, assuming 9 million people moved in
• $50 billion — amount spent before suspension in September 2025
• For developers: The NEOM Oxagon data centre site has real infrastructure despite the city cancellation; the AI factory announced in 2026 is a genuine asset play on land already connected to the grid and the Red Sea
• What to watch: How Saudi PIF handles the remaining NEOM sub-projects (Sindalah, Trojena, Leyja) now that the flagship has been publicly abandoned