Uber chief backtracks on calling slaying of Jamal Khashoggi a 'mistake'

“There’s no forgiving or forgetting what happened to Jamal Khashoggi & I was wrong to call it a ‘mistake.’ As I told @danprimack after our interview, I said something in the moment I don’t believe. Our investors have long known my views here & I’m sorry I wasn’t as clear on Axios,” Khosrowshahi tweeted.

The Uber chief was pressed during the interview about the managing director of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, keeping a seat on the ride-sharing company’s board of directors given the Saudi government’s role in Khashoggi’s murder.

The CIA determined last year Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the journalist’s killing. The United States sanctioned 17 Saudis believed to be responsible for Khashoggi’s death.

Khashoggi, a Virginia resident, was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul for paperwork related to his impending wedding to Hatice Cengiz, who is Turkish. Turkish media reported the dissident was tortured, beheaded, then dismembered. His body has not been found.

The incident drew international condemnation.

In addition to Al-Rumayyan holding a seat on Uber’s board, Saudi Arabia is the fifth-largest investor in the company, and in 2016, the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund gave the ride-sharing company $3.5 billion, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Saudi government is estimated to own more than 10% of Uber through direct Hatice Cengiz and indirect holdings, Bloomberg reported last year.

Khosrowshahi told Axios the kingdom “said that they made a mistake” regarding Khashoggi’s death and equated the murder to Uber’s own missteps with self-driving vehicles.

Federal investigators found in the wake of an Arizona accident where one of the company’s automated cars killed a 49-year-old woman who was jaywalking that the vehicles were not programmed with the capability to recognize pedestrians unless they were near a crosswalk.

“I think that people make mistakes, and it doesn’t mean that they can never be forgiven,” he said. “I think they’ve taken it seriously.”

The comments from Khosrowshahi sent shockwaves across the internet, leading some social media users to call for a boycott of Uber.

“@Uber’s CEO is showing us what moral bankruptcy looks like in real time. This is the spiritual rot that ensues when profits are places over lives,” Karen Attiah, the global opinions editor at the Washington Post, tweeted.

“Everyone who uses Uber should consider the implications of @dkhos’s words. If one of @Uber’s main investors kills someone it doesn’t really matter. A representative of a murderous regime can still keep a board seat. When you’re rich, your crimes become “mistakes”. #BoycottUber,” she said in a subsequent tweet.