Media sponsors start dropping out of Saudi conference after journalist goes missing

The Future Investment Initiative, also known as "Davos in the desert," is hosted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and is part of his Vision 2030 plan to break the country's dependence on oil.

The conference is scheduled to take place between October 23 and October 25 in Riyadh. Major political and business figures have been invited to speak and several big companies, including Siemens (SIEGY), MasterCard (MA) and Deloitte are listed as "strategic partners" for the event on its website.

But media partners for the conference have come under particular scrutiny, since Khashoggi is a prominent Saudi journalist, contributor to the Washington Post and critic of the Saudi regime.

The New York Times has already pulled its partnership, telling CNN Business in a statement that the newspaper is "no longer a media sponsor."

"In light of the current situation related to the disappearance of the Washington Post's Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Turkey, we are no longer comfortable being associated with the event," a Times spokesperson said.

Khashoggi has been missing for more than a week after going to the Saudi consulate general in Istanbul to obtain wedding papers. Turkish officials privately believe he was killed at the consulate, an allegation denied by Saudi Arabia.

The United States has intercepts of Saudi officials discussing a plan to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia and detain him, according to a US official familiar with the intelligence.

Andrew Ross Sorkin, a columnist for the New York Times and anchor for CNBC, tweeted Thursday that he was "terribly distressed" by the disappearance of Khashoggi and would no longer participate. He had been due to moderate three sessions.

Zanny Minton Beddoes, the editor-in-chief of The Economist, will also no longer speak at the event as previously scheduled, a spokesperson told CNN Business.

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Other media partners for the Saudi investment conference include CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox Business Network, Financial Times, Nikkei and Al Arabiya.

Journalists from CNN, Fox Business Network, CNBC and the New York Times are listed as moderators for the event. Patrick Soon-Shiong, chairman and CEO of the Los Angeles Times, is listed as a speaker.

A CNN spokesperson said the network was "evaluating our participation in the conference." Fox Business Network and CNBC are monitoring the situation, according to spokespeople for both networks.

The Financial Times did not respond to a request for comment, but a spokesperson was cited by BuzzFeed as saying that the newspaper was also monitoring the situation.

Bloomberg, which has a 10-year deal with a Saudi publisher to run an Arabic language financial news network, did not respond to a request for comment.

Siemens said it was monitoring the situation. "As of now, our plans haven't changed and the CEO will be attending," said Tamara Hamadan, Siemens spokesperson in the Middle East.

MasterCard did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Viacom (VIAB), whose CEO Bob Bakish is also scheduled to speak at the conference, said the company was aware of the reports regarding Khashoggi and was monitoring the situation closely.

CNN's Chris Liakos, Zahraa Alkhalisi and Julia Horowitz contributed to this report.

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