Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Vision 2030, unveiled in 2016 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aimed to diversify the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy through massive infrastructure investments, setting the stage for NEOM—a $500 billion megacity project announced in 2017 in the Tabuk Province along the Red Sea coast.
Spanning 26,500 square kilometers, NEOM was envisioned as a futuristic hub for innovation, sustainability, and tourism, incorporating five key regions: Sindalah, Oxagon, Trojena, Magna, and the centerpiece, The Line. The Line emerged as the project’s boldest element, conceived by bin Salman himself as a radical departure from traditional urban planning, promising a car-free, zero-carbon linear city powered entirely by renewable energy to accommodate up to 9 million residents—about a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s population—while minimizing environmental impact.
The Line was dramatically revealed in January 2021 during NEOM’s Future Investment Initiative, captivating global audiences with renderings of a 170-kilometer-long, 500-meter-tall, 200-meter-wide mirrored structure slicing through desert, coast, and mountains, where all essential services would be accessible within a five-minute walk via high-speed transit and vertical farms. Initial plans projected completion of the full city by 2045, with early phases targeting 2025, backed by a $1 trillion investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and international partners. Construction kicked off in 2022, with groundwork for a 2.4-kilometer pilot segment underway by 2023, alongside announcements of joint ventures like the NEOM Green Hydrogen Company to support its energy needs. The project drew praise for its potential to redefine urban living but also faced early backlash over human rights concerns, including the forced eviction of the Howeitat tribe and reports of migrant worker exploitation.
By late 2025, however, The Line’s trajectory shifted amid mounting challenges, with PIF writing down $8 billion in value and conducting strategic reviews of costs and viability, leading to scaled-back ambitions. Officials confirmed in 2024 that only a 5-kilometer central segment would be prioritized for completion by 2030, pushing the full 170-kilometer vision potentially to 2045 or beyond, as new contracts dried up and the project vanished from Saudi Arabia’s 2026 budget plans. Internal audits revealed mismanagement and “deliberate manipulation,” while economic pressures from oil price volatility and a lack of foreign investment exacerbated delays. Despite these hurdles, NEOM persists as a symbol of Saudi Arabia’s post-oil aspirations, with bin Salman reaffirming commitment to proving skeptics wrong, though its legacy remains a cautionary tale of visionary excess in megaproject execution.
OTHER INTERESTING VIDEOS:
The 25 Biggest Megaprojects Completing in 2025 • The 25 Biggest Megaprojects Completing in …
What Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup Will Look Like • What Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup Will Lo…
The Cube Actually Begins Construction • The Cube Actually Begins Construction
On September 16th, 2025, Saudi Arabia quietly cancelled The Line.
No announcement. No press release. Just a brutal internal decision that carved up a trillion-dollar dream and distributed its corpse across the Kingdom. After months on the ground investigating NEOM, we can finally reveal what really happened. The 170-kilometer vision? Dead. The $8.8 TRILLION price tag? Real. The magic trick MBS pulled on the entire world? Bigger than anyone imagined. This is the autopsy of the most expensive construction project never built—and the revelation of what was actually being constructed while we were all distracted by mirror walls. Using leaked documents, PIF audits, and our investigation on-site, we expose how MBS staged the greatest misdirection in construction history. The Line wasn’t a city. It was a cover story for something far more ambitious.
For more megaprojects content, be sure to subscribe to MegaBuilds!
🔔 Subscribe to Gigaprojects for deep dives into the world’s most ambitious gigaprojects! Source: Gigaprojects
For more Mega Construction & Megaproject content be sure to subscribe to Billion Dollar Builds.
