An unnamed official told Bloomberg on 5 April that the project would be scaled back to 2.4 kilometres, with a reduced capacity of less than 300,000 residents.

“The pullback on The Line comes as the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund has yet to approve Neom’s budget for 2024,” Bloomberg writes, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter. “It shows that the financial realities of the trillions of dollars of investment are starting to cause concern at the highest levels of the Saudi government as it tries to fulfil its ambitious Vision 2030 program, the overarching initiative tasked with diversifying the kingdom’s economy.”

Saudi Arabia’s NEOM The Line development has also sparked human rights concerns over the required expulsion of the Howeitat tribe from their lands in the Tabuk region.