So far the list of media sponsors declaring their withdrawal from the Saudi-hosted Future Investment Initiative (FII) event include the Financial Times, Bloomberg, CNN and CNBC, as well as president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, who indicated on Friday he would not be attending, according to The Guardian.

Notably the event has been described as largely the brainchild of the kingdom's de facto ruler, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is trying to draw international investments for his much-hyped and ambitious Vision 2030 project. But as of late Friday a burgeoning list of key names who say they will shun the summit are as follows: Arianna Huffington, Patrick Soon-Shiong (LA Times owner), CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bob Bakish (Viacom chief executive), Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber's chief executive), and the Economist's editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, among others.