Personal Loans if You Don't Have Credit American officials offered no immediate comment on the talks. However, Iran's state-run broadcaster revealed that U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi "briefly spoke" together — the first time the two nations have done that since the Obama administration. But declaring that the two sides spoke face-to-face — even if briefly — suggests the negotiations went well even to Iranian state TV, which long has been controlled by hard-liners. Araghchi announced the next round would take place Saturday, April 19. This first round of talks began at around 3:30 p.m. local. Trump repeatedly has threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran's nuclear program if a deal isn't reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels. Associated Press journalists saw a convoy believed to be carrying Witkoff leave the Omani Foreign Ministry on Saturday afternoon and then speed off into the outskirts of Muscat. Afterward, Araghchi described the meeting as constructive to Iranian state TV, with four rounds of messages exchanged during the indirect portion. "Neither we nor the other side are interested in fruitless negotiations — so-called 'talks for the sake of talks,' wasting time, or drawn-out, exhausting negotiations," he said. "Both sides, including the Americans, have said that their goal is also to reach an agreement in the shortest possible time. However, that will certainly not be an easy task." Trump and Witkoff both had described the talks as being "direct." "I think our position begins with dismantlement of your program. That is our position today," Witkoff told The Wall Street Journal before his trip. Araghchi, however, sought to downplay the encounter as "a brief initial conversation, greetings and polite exchanges" — likely to avoid drawing the anger of hard-liners in Iran. Badr al-Busaidi, Oman's foreign minister who shuttled between the two sides, said the countries have a "shared aim of concluding a fair and binding agreement." "I would like to thank my two colleagues for this engagement, which took place in a friendly atmosphere conducive to bridging viewpoints and ultimately achieving regional and global peace, security and stability," al-Busaidi wrote on X. While the U.S. side can offer sanctions relief for Iran's beleaguered economy, it remains unclear just how much Iran will be willing to concede. Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran could only maintain a small stockpile of uranium enriched to 3.67%. Judging from negotiations since Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the deal in 2018, Iran will likely ask to keep enriching uranium up to at least 20%. One thing it won't do is give up its program entirely. That makes the proposal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of a so-called Libyan solution — "you go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision, American execution" — unworkable. Iranians including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have held up what ultimately happened to the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed with his own gun by rebels in the country's 2011 Arab Spring uprising, as a warning about what can happen when you trust the United States. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Personal Loans if You Don't Have Credit Apple's iPhone and other technology hardware, from chips to PCs, received a China tariff reprieve from President Trump on Saturday, but for much of the U.S. economy and small business owners, the damage will soon be irreversible from the 145% tariffs being imposed on Chinese imports. Canceled freight orders and abandoned freight from China are quickly becoming the norm in the trade war between the U.S. and China, according to supply chain executives, as businesses across U.S. industries put a full stop on container exports, with the tariffs hitting like a ton of bricks. "Furniture producers in China have seen a complete halt in orders from U.S. importers, and we're hearing the same across toys, apparel, footwear, and sports equipment," said Alan Murphy, founder and CEO of Sea-Intelligence. "We had the same across Southeast Asia, but after the 90-day reprieve those bookings have restarted," said Brian Bourke, chief commercial officer for SEKO Logistics, while the cancelled bookings for containers out of China continue. "Almost everything is on hold as it relates to China business," said Alan Baer, CEO of OL USA. "Trump's 145% total tariff on Chinese imports would stop most trade between the U.S. and China," economist Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation's Center for Federal Tax Policy, said on Thursday on CNBC's "The Exchange." "There may still be some things without any substitutes that companies just have to foot the bill, but for the most part, that cuts it off," York said. As it became clear over the last week that China would remain the main target of the Trump administration's tariffs policy — after the 90-day reprieve was granted to all other countries expected to be hit with new tariffs — the message that came through is that lower-margin goods cannot sustainably be produced in China. "Higher-margin and more technical goods, such as electronics, machinery, medical equipment, and pharmaceuticals cannot easily move sourcing, as setting up highly technical manufacturing takes time and considerable capital," Murphy said. Before the tech tariff exemption, he says producers of these goods were analyzing what components could be sourced elsewhere, while primarily looking to draw down U.S. inventories in the short term. Lowering prices to Europe to keep production going, or outright closing down production lines, were also being considered. "With prohibitively high tariff levels on U.S. imports from China, many companies have no choice but to cancel orders," said Lamar. That is not a risk or burden small business can sustain." Lamar said with no alternative sourcing on the horizon for many of these companies, particularly small businesses, this sudden lack of orders will immediately translate into lost sales and widespread product shortages. "An extension of the trade war pause to U.S. imports from China is needed now before the damage is irreversible," Lamar said. Integrated logistics giant Maersk has warned that on the container liner side of its business, the drop in bookings coupled with the possibility of shipbuilding fees on "Chinese" vessels also going into effect next week, will result in a "massive restructuring of all liner services to North America." "No one will consider massive investments in U.S. production if tariffs are merely a ploy to negotiate better trade deals. If the administration is actually pursuing a goal of U.S. reindustrialization, then the long-term plan for tariffs has to be clear, and less talk of '4D chess' and 'Art of the Deal,'" he said. "The Yo-yo tactic of changing tariff rates on a daily basis does nothing but create uncertainty," he added. Logistics providers can offer bonded storage, which allows freight to come into the U.S. without being charged a tariff for a certain amount of time. "The current circumstances are unprecedented," said Karsten Kildahl, chief commercial officer at A.P. The fate of abandoned ocean and air freight — cargo that isn't claimed or paid for by the shipping company or the freight forwarder responsible for paying customs on behalf of their client — isn't clear and rules change port to port, and contract to contract. Port officials tell CNBC they are not typically notified of abandoned cargo. The New York Terminal Conference Agreement states that cargo remaining on the terminal in excess of 30 days will be considered as abandoned and sold for collection of demurrage charges due to the NYTC — charges assessed for leaving freight at terminals for an excessive period of time. The terminal can move abandoned cargo to a bonded warehouse or leave it on the terminal and sell it from there. There is a market for buying abandoned freight. Companies such as JS Cargo & Freight Disposal, FR8 Auctions or Merchandise USA buy abandoned cargo and then sell it in discount stores, outlets, liquidators, online sellers like Amazon, drug chains, variety outlets, redemption centers, liquidators, and closeout buyers. Maersk tells CNBC many shippers are deploying a "wait and see"-approach and in a recent alert to clients wrote that until there is a clearer picture, customers will be cautious about their inventory levels and continue exploring ways to build additional flexibility into their supply chains. Across its global network of warehouses, distribution centers, port terminals, vessels, and cargo planes, "extra flexibility" is what many clients are seeking now, he said. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

New York University's Grossman School of Medicine made history in 2018 when it became the first top-ranked medical program to offer full-tuition scholarships to all students, regardless of need or merit. "Tuition-free schools can actually increase inequity," said Jamie Beaton, co-founder and CEO of Crimson Education, a college consulting firm. "This in turn can skew admissions towards middle- or higher-income applicants who may be able to access more effective admissions resources, such as tutoring or extracurriculars." More from Personal Finance:How to maximize your college financial aid offerTop colleges roll out more generous financial aid packagesCollege hopefuls have a new ultimate dream school "This allows students to align career choices with their passions in medicine rather than immediate economic pressures." Sklar, however, did not directly address the issue of declining low-income student enrollment. Harvard University was the latest undergraduate school to announce that it will be tuition free for undergraduates with family incomes of up to $200,000 beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, following similar initiatives at Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Nearly two dozen more schools have also introduced "no-loan" policies, which means student loans are eliminated altogether from their financial aid packages. In the case of Harvard, "you may see a trend of families with income closer to $200,000 outcompeting low-income students for slots," Beaton said. More generous aid packages and tuition-free policies remove the most significant financial barrier to higher education but attract more higher-income applicants, other experts also say. "Even though it sounds like lower-income students are going to be advantaged, it's the middle class that's going to win here," said Christopher Rim, president and CEO of college consulting firm Command Education. For lower income students, "anything that increases the number of applications will be detrimental," said Eric Greenberg, president of Greenberg Educational Group, a New York-based consulting firm. These days, taking on too much debt is the top worry among all college-bound students, according to a survey by The Princeton Review. College tuition has soared by 5.6% a year, on average, since 1983, significantly outpacing other household expenses, a recent study by J.P. Morgan Asset Management also found. This rapid increase means that college costs have risen much faster than inflation, leaving families to shoulder a larger share of the expenses, experts say. For the 2024-25 school year, tuition and fees plus room and board for a four-year private college averaged $58,600, up from $56,390 a year earlier. At four-year, in-state public colleges, it was $24,920, up from $24,080, according to the College Board. To bridge the affordability gap, some of the nation's top institutions are in an "affordability arms race," according to Hafeez Lakhani, founder and president of Lakhani Coaching in New York. However, overall, most institutions do not have the financial wherewithal to offer tuition-free or no-loan aid programs, added Robert Franek, The Princeton Review's editor in chief. "More than 95% of four-year colleges in the U.S. are tuition driven," he said. Even if a school does not offer enough aid at the outset, there are other ways to bring costs down, according to James Lewis, co-founder of National Society of High School Scholars. "Get beyond, 'I can't afford that,"' he said. Many schools will provide access to additional resources that can lower the total tab, he said, either through scholarships, financial aid or work-study opportunities. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

From rising clothing and food prices to unexpected car repairs, everyday expenses are creeping up — and the prospect of government-imposed tariffs aren't helping. Add in a rocky stock market and a few losses in my retirement accounts, and it would be really easy to panic. What's helped me the most is not overreacting out of fear. Here's what I'm doing with my money right now: Instead of throwing money at "convenience inflation" — impulse buys, random Amazon finds or dupes that don't last, I'm redirecting those funds toward what truly supports my health and happiness: nutritious food, better sleep, and time-saving services that keep my stress low. DON'T MISS: How to change careers and be happier at work As an Asian American, I'm especially aware that many of my household staples are imported, and I'm stocking up now ahead of potential price spikes. One of my clients is a therapist, and she's already seeing patients drop off because of fears around job loss. I encourage my clients to keep therapy in the budget, especially now, by cutting what's not essential so they can keep what is. I'm slightly increasing my cash reserves to prep for higher costs in essentials — especially groceries, clothing, and car repairs. I even have a little "car-buffer fund" now, just in case auto part tariffs sneak up on me. I still keep six months of emergency expenses in a high-yield savings account, but that's because I'm debt-free, a lifestyle choice that has served me well in the last two recessions. For my clients who still carry credit card debt, I'm urging them to pay that off now. If the interest rate is 20% and prices on goods go up another 20%, that's a recipe for cash flow chaos, even if your spending habits stay the same. Paying down credit card debt is saving 20% that would have gone to the credit card company instead of staying in your pocket. One easy shift that's helping me and my clients: pay your credit card weekly instead of monthly. Paying your credit card bills on a monthly basis means you're still paying for purchases from up to 30 days ago. Watching something I've worked so hard for drop in value because of man-made economic decisions is frustrating. We often mistake having multiple stocks as diversification, but as we saw recently, many stocks tend to move in the same direction, so it's important to look at the asset classes you are invested in. I'm not withdrawing a dime of my retirement, and you shouldn't either unless you are prepared to pay the extra taxes and penalties. This is the advice I've shared with my money coaching clients lately: manage your money as though the recession is already here. If I've learned anything from the last two decades, it's that uncertainty isn't going anywhere. I've stopped waiting for the "perfect" economy to make decisions. Instead of doom scrolling, use this time to refine your budget, double down on stacking cash and paying down debt, and stay vigilant of your present progress, rather than trying to predict the future. You can find her on Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. Do you want a new career that's higher-paying, more flexible or fulfilling? Take CNBC's new online course How to Change Careers and Be Happier at Work. Get Make It newsletters delivered to your inbox Learn more about the world of CNBC Make It

DETROIT — As President Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on imported vehicles remain in effect despite a pullback this week on other country-based levies, analysts are expecting massive global implications for the automotive industry due to the policies. They're expecting to see a drop in vehicle sales in the millions, higher new and used vehicle prices, and increased costs of more than $100 billion for the industry, according to research reports from Wall Street and automotive analysts. "What we're seeing now is a structural shift, driven by policy, that's likely to be long-lasting," Felix Stellmaszek, Boston Consulting Group's global lead of automotive and mobility, told CNBC. "This may well be the most consequential year for the auto industry in history – not just because of immediate cost pressures, but because it's forcing fundamental change in how and where the industry builds." The Center for Automotive Research, a Michigan-based nonprofit think tank, believes costs for automakers in the U.S. alone will increase by $107.7 billion. That includes $41.9 billion for Detroit automakers General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler parent Stellantis. Both analyses take into account the 25% tariffs on imported vehicles implemented by Trump on April 3 as well as forthcoming levies of the same amount on automotive parts that are set to begin by May 3. "We believe the tariffs as proposed will raise the cost of both importing and manufacturing vehicles in the US by at least a low to mid single digit thousand dollar level on average, and we believe it will be hard for the auto industry to fully pass this on, especially with softening consumer demand more generally," Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney said in a Thursday investor note. Automakers have responded to the tariffs in a variety of ways. Manufacturers that are mostly domestic, such as Ford and Stellantis, have announced temporary deals for employee pricing, while others, such as British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover, have ceased U.S. shipments. Hyundai Motor also has said it would not raise prices for at least two months to ease consumer concerns. Consumer sentiment grew even worse than anticipated in April as the expected inflation level hit its highest since 1981, a closely watched University of Michigan survey showed Friday. Sam Abuelsamid, vice president of insights at auto advisory firm Telemetry, expects many automakers have at least a roughly two-month supply of non-tariff impacted vehicles that they will be able to sell down before needing to increase prices due to tariffs. Telemetry expects the higher costs for production, parts and other factors to result in upward of 2 million fewer vehicles sold annually in the U.S. and Canada, which will have ripple effects on the broader economy. "That's driven by higher prices, not just for vehicles, but across the board … which is going to limit people's' spending power." Affordability of new and used vehicles has been a problem for several years. On average, Cox Automotive reports new vehicles cost nearly $50,000. That figure doesn't include the cost of financing such a vehicle, which has risen significantly in recent years in an attempt to combat inflation. Auto loan rates remain near decades-high levels of more than 9.64% for a new vehicle and nearly 15% for a used car or truck, according to Cox. "We expect to see declining discounting and then accelerated price increases as the tariffs are passed through and supply tightens, leading to price increases on all types of most new vehicles," Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke said during a virtual event Monday. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Personal Loans if You Don't Have Credit If the vision of Larry Fink — CEO of BlackRock, the world's biggest money manager — becomes reality, all assets from stocks to bonds to real estate and more would be tradable online, on a blockchain. "Every asset — can be tokenized," Fink wrote in his recent annual letter to investors. Unlike traditional paper certificates signifying financial ownership, tokens live securely on a blockchain, enabling instant buying, selling, and transfers without paperwork or waiting — "much like a digital deed," he wrote. Fink says it would be nothing short of a "revolution" for investing. Think 24-hour markets and a trading settlement process that can be compacted down into seconds from a process that today can still take days, with billions of dollars reinvested immediately back into the economy. But there's one big problem, one technology challenge that stands in the way: the lack of a coordinated digital identity verification system. While technology experts say Fink's idea isn't improbable, they agree that there are cybersecurity challenges ahead in making it work. Today, it's not easy to verify online that the person you are interacting with is that person because of the prevalence of AI deepfakes and sophisticated cybercriminals, according to Christina Hulka, executive director of the Secure Technology Alliance, an organization focused on identity, access and payments. As a result, having a unified verification system would be useful because there would be cryptographic validation that people are who they say they are. "The [financial services] industry is focused on how to build a zero-trust framework for identification. You don't trust anything until it's verified," Hulka said. It's hard to say precisely how a broad-based digital verification system would work but to support a fully tokenized financial structure, a system would, at a minimum, need to meet stringent security requirements, particularly those tied to financial regulations like the Know Your Customer rule and anti-money laundering rules, according to Zulfikar Ramzan, chief technology officer at Point Wild, a cybersecurity company. There's no shortage of technical tools today, especially from the field of cryptography, that can effectively bind a digital identity to a transaction, Ramzan said. "Fifteen to 20 years ago, this conversation would have been a non-starter," he added. There have been some successes with programs like this across the globe, according to Ramzan. It enables most of the population to authenticate transactions via mobile devices, and it's integrated across both public and private services. "While these systems differ in how they handle issues like privacy, they all share a key trait: centralized government leadership that drove standardization and adoption," Ramzan said. While a centralized system solves one challenge, the storage of personally identifiable information and biometrics data is a security risk, said David Mattei, a strategic advisor in the fraud and AML practice at Datos Insights, which works with financial services, insurance and retail technology companies. Notably, there have been reports of data stolen from India's Aadhaar system. And last year, El Salvador's government had the personal data of 80% of its citizens stolen from a centralized, government-managed citizen identity system. "A lot of security experts do not advocate having a centralized security system because it's kind of like the pot at the end of the rainbow that every fraudster is trying to get his hands on," Mattei said. On mobile devices, Face ID and Fingerprint ID are done not by centralizing all of that data in one spot at Apple or Google, but by storing the data in a secure module on each mobile device. "This makes it much harder, if not impossible, for fraudsters to steal that data en masse," Mattei said. "To move forward, we will either need a cohesive national strategy or a way to better coordinate identity across the state and federal levels," he said. Take, for example, the effort many states are making to adopt digital driver's licenses. About a quarter of states today, including Utah, Maryland, Virginia and New York, issue mobile driver's licenses, according to mDLConnection, an online resource from the Secure Technology Alliance. But this undertaking is quite ambitious and has been underway for several years. To implement a national identity verification system would be a "massive undertaking and would require just about every company that does business online to adopt a government standard for identity verification and authentication," Mattei said. There are also significant data privacy hurdles to overcome. The idea is not a brand new one for Fink. At Davos earlier this year, he told CNBC that he wanted the SEC "to rapidly expand the tokenization of stocks and bonds." There's BlackRock self-interest at work, and potential cost savings for the firm and many others, which Fink has spoken about. In recent years, BlackRock has been dragged into political battles, and lawsuits, over its voting of a massive amount of shares held in its funds on ESG issues. "We'd never have to vote on a proxy vote anymore," Fink told CNBC at Davos, referring to "the tax on BlackRock." It is clear from Fink's decision to give this issue prominent placement in his annual letter — even if it came in third in the order of issues he covered behind both the politics of protectionism and the growing role of private markets — that he isn't letting up. "If we're serious about building an efficient and accessible financial system, championing tokenization alone won't suffice. Accordingly, there are initiatives underway to think about how the U.S. can achieve a broad-based identity verification system, Hulka said. There are technical ways to do it, but finding the right way that works for the country is more of a challenge since it has to be interoperable. Eventually, there will be a tipping point for the financial services industry where it becomes a business imperative, Hulka said. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

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"I do think your day-to-day workflow just isn't going to look like this in 10 or 15 years time," Suleyman said on a recent episode of the "Big Technology" Podcast. "It's going to be much more about you managing your AI agent, you asking it to go do things, checking in on its quality, getting feedback, and getting into this symbiotic relationship where you iterate with it," he said. Suleyman, the cofounder of Google DeepMind, believes that people are too tied up in the "day-to-day" of AI and failing to reckon with its possible long-term impacts. "Everything around us is a product of smart human beings getting together, organizing, creating, inventing, and producing everything that you see in your line of sight at this very moment." Artificial intelligence, shrouded in its fair share of hype, hasn't yet delivered on the vision often painted by tech leaders — such as breakthroughs in medicine, like treatments for deadly diseases, or solutions to the climate crisis. In some cases, applications of the technology have drawn concerns — such as AI's use in warfare or companies leaning on AI agents over human workers. Demis Hassabis, who co-founded Google DeepMind with Suleyman, has gone so far as to say he worries about ending up like Robert Oppenheimer. And there's no going back now — Suleyman, who's particularly optimistic about AI's future effects, only expects the pace of innovation to increase. "And we're now about to make that very same technique, those set of capabilities, really cheap — if not, like, zero marginal cost," he said. In order for younger generations to best prepare themselves to inherit a changed world, Suleyman suggests they familiarize themselves with the technology. "It's a little bit like saying, 'What should young people do when they get access to the internet for the first time?'" It's technology's users, Suleyman added, rather than its creators, that ultimately help determine the direction of its future development by identifying how it's best used. "I think the same applies to a 15-year-old who's in high school, thinking about what they do next in college or whatever, or whether or not they go to college," he added. "I think the answer is, play with these things," he said. Try everything that you possibly can with these models, and then you'll start to see their weaknesses as well, by the way, and you'll start to chip away at the hype."

Find the Best Personal Loan for You Personal Loans if You Don't Have Credit Bank of England interest rate-setter Megan Greene said on Saturday it was unclear what U.S. President Donald Trump's import tariffs would do to UK inflation with the unpredictable behaviour of the dollar adding to the puzzle. Higher barriers to trade were likely to weigh on economic growth in countries in Europe, Greene said during a panel discussion at the Delphi Economic Forum conference in Greece. "The implications for inflation, though, are somewhat ambiguous," she said, noting the possibility of Chinese exports being diverted away from the U.S. and towards Europe which could push down on prices. "The key channel, really is exchange rates, and that's been really difficult because exchange rates haven't operated in the past week as the models would suggest," she said. "The dollar has fallen instead of appreciating as you would expect." A stronger dollar would normally push up inflation in other countries, Greene said. BoE deputy governors Clare Lombardelli and Sarah Breeden both said earlier this week that it was too early to say what the inflation implications from Trump's tariffs will be. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Big ambitions clashed with delays, cost overruns, and political controversy. One of the most expensive Arab series ever made, it portrays seventh-century life in the desert, with sweeping overhead shots, charging armies on horseback, and massive flotillas. "Muawiya" was a ratings hit, but behind the dazzling visuals, it had problems emblematic of Saudi Arabia's broader TV and movie struggles. The 30-episode series from MBC Studios, Saudi Arabia's marquee TV and movie studio, faced years of delays and a ballooning budget, two people familiar with the production told Business Insider. The budget had reached more than $50 million by the time of a previously unreported internal audit dated December 2022, which was viewed by BI. "It's super edgy, super sensitive," said Mazen Hayek, who worked for 14 years as a spokesperson for MBC Group — the majority Saudi government-owned parent of MBC Studios — and is now a media consultant based in Dubai. "Muawiya" centers on the life of Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, a figure in early Islam who is generally held in high esteem in the Sunni Muslim world — including Saudi Arabia — but loathed by many Shiites. Delays, cost overruns, and political land mines have hampered its ambitious projects for years, according to the audit and BI's conversations with people who have worked for and with the company. MBC Studios was a key part of Saudi Arabia's plan, unveiled in 2018, to spend $64 billion on entertainment projects and venues at home, largely funded by its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund. MBC Studios soon began to jump into projects at a dizzying pace. The audit, which ran over 50 pages, said that while the studio was growing fast, it was undermined by unclear strategy, disorganization, and a lack of internal controls. It recommended tightening production practices to avoid overspending, hiring competitively, and monitoring projects' performance. Since that time, MBC Studios has had some wins, particularly with local-language productions. The five people close to the company told BI it has scaled back some of its original production ambitions, however. They said it's also been plagued by leadership shake-ups and jettisoned a series of Hollywood experts brought on to take its operations to the next level. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's other big entertainment bet besides MBC Studios, Neom Media — the filmmaking facility in its futuristic city of Neom — has seen some similar problems. It has faced leadership turnover and fallen off the radar in Hollywood, multiple industry insiders said. Neom Media said in a statement that it's hosted 40 productions from Hollywood and elsewhere and has plans for more. "They have a fast-growing local sector that caters toward a local audience," one person who works in the region said broadly of Saudi Arabia's entertainment efforts, the two most prominent of which are MBC Studios and Neom Media. But, this person added, "They're yet to convince the international community that they can make first-class entertainment on the ground." MBC Studios didn't provide comment by press time following multiple requests. MBC Studios' first two big swings in the movie business disappointed. "Kandahar," the action film the studio funded starring Gerard Butler, and one of the first US films to be shot in Saudi Arabia, was released in 2023 to tepid reviews and a lackluster box office. Another, the unreleased "Desert Warrior," has been stymied by rising costs and delays. People familiar with the financing characterized that as double its original budget. Some of the added costs, such as COVID protocols, were due to timing. Infrastructure had to be built in the desert, and crew had to be flown in from other countries. The film went big on talent, enlisting Anthony Mackie of Marvel movie fame and Oscar winner Ben Kingsley, in addition to local stars. Insiders said fights over creative direction and the film's length also hung up production. Filming ended in 2022, but there's been no festival premiere — the film will miss out on another Cannes Film Festival premiere this year — and the movie has yet to get a release date. MBC Studios has had some local success stories, like "Rashash," a show about a notorious criminal figure in Saudi Arabia that was well received, and "Inheritance," billed as the first Arab soap opera. But Sheikh Waleed Al Ibrahim — the politically connected founder of MBC Group — also wanted to make projects about historical events, which often courted controversy. In addition to "Muawiya," there was "Embassy 87," which revisited the deadly 1987 clash between Saudi police and Iranian pilgrims at Mecca. That one was removed from streaming after Kuwait demanded it be taken down. Hayek, the media consultant, said MBC Studios has to strike a tricky balance. Despite these challenges, in early 2024, MBC Group undertook an IPO, part of a boom of other Saudi public offerings. It was considered a big success, raising $222 million and valuing the company at nearly $3 billion. The studio is now run by a veteran MBC executive, Samar Akrouk, and has cut back its ambitions to focus on lower-risk dramas and comedies, particularly productions for Shahid, its streaming service. It's also a time of transition at parent MBC Group, which replaced its CEO in early April. Those who get it could find the rebate benefit wiped out by the need to fly in crew members. Filmmakers wanting a desert landscape may kick the tires on Saudi Arabia but often end up going to more established filmmaking locales like Jordan, Morocco, or Abu Dhabi, where "Dune: Part Two" was shot. Some are put off by Saudi Arabia's alcohol ban. Turmoil at the top can't have helped. Wayne Borg, an Australian exec who was tapped to run Neom Media, was replaced in September after a Wall Street Journal report alleged he made racist and sexist comments about workers. Borg did not respond to multiple requests for comment. "We're not just attracting international productions; we're also becoming a hub for regional content and international content, with projects in the pipeline," Michael Lynch, another Australian exec who now leads Neom Media, said in a statement. Some people who have done business in the region preached patience. They compared Saudi Arabia's efforts to China's and Qatar's moves into entertainment and emphasized that it takes decades to build such a business. "It would be unrealistic to expect fast results," someone who has worked in the country said.