"After spending more than $50 billion, the crown prince’s sci-fi-inspired dreams—an arid-mountain ski resort, a floating business district, and the Line, the 106-mile-long pair of Empire State Building-height skyscrapers that is Neom’s centerpiece—have collided with reality.
Costs have soared, delays are ubiquitous and a decision last year to reduce Neom’s first phase threatens to deprive the desert city of the critical mass of inhabitants needed to make it a modern business hub.
Behind Neom’s problems: a dance of mutual delusion in which the crown prince pushed for fantastical plans—and executives shielded him from the full scope of challenges and costs, according to former employees and a more than 100-page internal audit of the project presented to members of Neom’s board last spring and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The audit report, labeled “final draft,” found that executives, at times aided by the project’s longtime consultants, McKinsey & Co., plugged unrealistically rosy assumptions into Neom’s business plan to justify rising cost estimates. The audit found “evidence of deliberate manipulation” of finances by “certain members of management.”"
https://www.wsj.com/finance/saudi-arabia-neom-sindalah-15b9f25a