Khalid bin Salman Al-Saud

Prince Khalid bin Salman trained as a military pilot before becoming Saudi ambassador to the United States. Born in 1988, he graduated from King Faisal Air Academy and received flight training in Texas and Mississippi. He flew F-15 aircraft, worked in tactical intelligence, and took part in operations against ISIS in Syria and in the intervention led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen. He moved into advisory work at the Defense Ministry and the Washington embassy before his appointment as ambassador in April 2017. ¹

His embassy service included the crisis over journalist Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance and murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. In October 2018, Khalid publicly rejected reports that Saudi authorities had detained or killed Khashoggi and said a Saudi team was assisting the Turkish investigation. Saudi officials subsequently acknowledged that Khashoggi had been killed inside the consulate, contradicting those early denials. ^{2, 3}

Khalid returned to the Defense Ministry as deputy minister in February 2019 and became defense minister in September 2022. His later responsibilities included chairing bodies concerned with military industry and the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition. ¹