Saudi Arabia's $20 Billion Tower Was Meant to Be a Mile High — The Ground Refused to Hold It

In 2007, a Saudi prince announced a tower a full mile high — the first of its kind in human history. What almost no one realized at the time was that the ground beneath the site had already set the limit. This is the story of how Saudi Arabia's $20 billion mega-tower kept getting cut down, and the three forces that did it. The Jeddah Tower will become the tallest building ever raised by human hands. But it was meant to be far taller. Before construction even began, soil tests along the Red Sea coast forced the design down by five hundred meters. Then a financial crisis stalled progress for years. Then the 2017 anti-corruption purge put the tower's own financier and its main contractor under government detention, and the world's future tallest building went dark for nearly seven years. The exact final height has never been publicly confirmed. The city it was meant to anchor has barely been built.