NEOM Deleted The Line's Promises From Its Own Website

NEOM deleted the defining promises of The Line from its own website between 1 June and 21 June 2026, and said nothing about it. The NEOM The Line website changes removed, in a single replacement, the claims that the city would stretch 170 kilometres, rise 500 metres, house 9 million people, operate with no roads or cars, and run on 100% renewable energy. None of those figures appears anywhere on the page today.

This is verifiable. The Internet Archive holds a capture of neom.com/en-us/regions/theline dated 1 June 2026 carrying the full original description, and a capture dated 21 June 2026 carrying the replacement [S2][S3]. The replacement is 78 words long. It contains no dimension, no population number, no date and no energy commitment. In its place: “A core component of NEOM’s long-term vision, THE LINE is advancing through a phased, demand-led approach.”

Arabian Gulf Business Insight (AGBI) first reported the rewrite on 13 July 2026 [S1]. The archives show the change was already live roughly three weeks earlier — before AGBI published, and before Public Investment Fund (PIF) Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan told an audience in Rome on 23 June that The Line’s first phase had been cut to 1.5 miles from an original 106 [S4]. The website moved first. The disclosure followed.

What follows is the before/after diff, built from archived captures rather than from paraphrase, with every deleted string quoted verbatim and dated.

Last verified: 31 July 2026.

What NEOM Deleted From The Line’s Page

The table below sets NEOM’s own words on 1 June 2026 against NEOM’s own words retrieved on 31 July 2026. Left column and right column are both primary text from neom.com; neither is a summary.

Every left-column string is quoted directly from the 1 June 2026 capture [S2]. Every right-column statement was checked against the live page on 31 July 2026 and against the 21 June 2026 capture [S3].

The single most consequential swap is the last-but-one row. On 1 June, NEOM described The Line as its flagship and named an executive responsible for “total delivery”. By 21 June, The Line was “a core component” advancing by a “phased, demand-led approach” — language that commits to no phase, no demand threshold and no date. For the delivery record behind that phrase, see our reality check on The Line’s progress and cost.

What Did NEOM Originally Promise for The Line?

A 170-kilometre mirrored city for 9 million people, running on 100% renewable energy with no cars, no roads and no emissions. That is not a critic’s characterisation. It is NEOM’s own copy, live on its website until at least 1 June 2026, and it read in full:

“A cognitive city stretching across 170 kilometers, from the epic mountains of NEOM across inspirational desert valleys to the beautiful Red Sea. A mirrored architectural masterpiece towering 500 meters above sea level, but a land-saving 200 meters wide. THE LINE redefines the concept of urban development and what cities of the future will look like.

No roads, cars or emissions, it will run on 100% renewable energy and 95% of land will be preserved for nature. People’s health and wellbeing will be prioritized over transportation and infrastructure, unlike traditional cities.

THE LINE will eventually accommodate 9 million people and will be built on a footprint of just 34 square kilometers.” [S2]

The page carried four supporting claims beneath that, each now gone: “The city will be zero-carbon”; “Our zero-car environment is part of a 100% sustainable transport system – with zero pollution and zero wait time”; “Zero-gravity living will mean a higher-density footprint creates a richer human experience”; and “95% OF LAND & SEA PROTECTED FOR NATURE”.

It also carried a quotation from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Chairman of the NEOM Company Board of Directors, in which he said NEOM was “leading a team of the brightest minds in architecture, engineering and construction to make the idea of building upwards a reality” [S2]. That quotation no longer appears on the page.

For the full original specification, its design history and the displacement of the Howeitat, see the encyclopedia entry on The Line, Saudi Arabia’s 170km linear city. That page owns the project’s specification and status. This page covers only what NEOM stopped saying, and when.

NEOM The Line Website Changes: The Three Waves, Dated

The rewrite was not a single event. Archived captures show three separable waves inside eight weeks.

Wave 1 is the tightest and most important. The 1 June 2026 capture of The Line page still carries the original text and the old five-region menu [S2]. The regions index captured on 17 June 2026 already carries the new six-category structure and the new copy [S9]. The Line page capture of 21 June 2026 carries the replacement [S3]. The window is therefore 1–17 June 2026 for the structural change and 1–21 June 2026 for The Line page itself.

That places the rewrite immediately before FII PRIORITY Europe, held in Rome from 17 to 19 June 2026 and chaired by Al-Rumayyan — the summit at which the scaled-down first phase entered the public record [S4]. Whether the sequencing was deliberate is not established. That the website changed first is.

Does The Line Still Plan to House 9 Million People?

NEOM no longer says so anywhere on its website. The figure has not been publicly withdrawn either — it was simply removed.

Two different numbers get conflated here, and separating them is the whole point. The 9 million figure was always an eventual full build-out target, phrased as “will eventually accommodate”. The 2030 milestone was a separate, much smaller number, and it is the one that has collapsed.

Semafor reported on 22 May 2026, citing people familiar with the plans, that NEOM executives had envisaged 1.5 million residents by the end of the decade, revised that to 300,000, and were more recently targeting about 100,000 by 2030 [S5]. That is a 93% reduction against the original 2030 figure, and roughly 1.1% of the 9 million eventual target. NEOM has not confirmed any of the three numbers publicly. Our analysis of NEOM’s feasibility sets out why the population arithmetic mattered to the business case in the first place.

Is The Line Still Car-Free?

NEOM has stopped saying it is. The sentence “No roads, cars or emissions” was live on 1 June 2026 and absent by 21 June 2026 [S2][S3]. So was “Our zero-car environment is part of a 100% sustainable transport system”.

This is the cleanest example of why deletion is not the same as reversal. NEOM has issued no statement abandoning the car-free design, published no replacement mobility specification, and made no announcement that the high-speed rail spine has been dropped. The commitment is neither confirmed nor formally withdrawn — it has been removed from the surface where members of the public, prospective residents and prospective investors would look for it.

The current page retains one adjacent phrase under a heading called SUSTAINABILITY: “A design approach that prioritizes renewable energy systems and cohesion with surrounding desert, mountain, and coastal ecosystems.” A design approach that prioritises renewable energy systems is a materially weaker statement than a city that will run on 100% renewable energy. Both sentences are NEOM’s. Only one is still published.

What Happened to Sindalah on NEOM’s Website?

Sindalah was absorbed, not relocated. As of 31 July 2026, neom.com/en-us/regions/sindalah resolves to a page titled Islands of NEOM. The island’s standalone section no longer exists.

On 22 May 2026 the Sindalah page was still live and still selling a destination: “The gateway to the Red Sea”, “positioned to offer a new season of sailing”, “located 17 hours away by boat from main Mediterranean yachting destinations” [S8]. The Islands of NEOM page that replaced it is built entirely around ecology. Its four headline statistics are 41 islands, 400 km² of mapped marine habitat, 300+ coral species and 1,000+ fish and marine mammal species. There is no resort, no hotel, no marina and no yacht club anywhere on it [S11].

Magna went the same way. The 1 June 2026 capture lists twelve named sub-destinations in the navigation — Leyja, Epicon, Siranna, Utamo, Norlana, Aquellum, Zardun, Xaynor, Elanan, Gidori, Treyam and JAUMUR — and describes “a range of exquisite hotels, resorts and luxury residences” across “406 square kilometer” with 95% reserved for nature [S10]. The current Magna page carries four statistics — 120 km of coastline, “MAJORITY of area conserved for nature”, 23°C average temperature, and “ACCESS to dramatic landscapes” — and names no sub-destination at all.

neom.com/en-us/regions/magna/epicon now redirects to the Magna landing page; the Epicon page is gone. The archived Epicon page described “a 55-room ultra luxury hotel, 165-room luxury resort and residences including exquisitely-located beach villas”. AGBI reported the removal of a 225-metre tower, a 275-metre skyscraper and a 41-key hotel from the Magna listings [S1]; those tower heights come from AGBI’s reporting and from NEOM’s original 2023 launch material, not from the captures we retrieved. On hotel counts the record is genuinely inconsistent: AGBI reports 15 boutique hotels removed, while the archived Magna page’s own interview with Magna Executive Director Jeremy Lester refers to a masterplan of “14 hotels and resorts”. We could verify the interview text; we could not verify a “15” figure in the captures, and we flag the discrepancy rather than pick a side.

For what was actually built and opened on the island, see our status assessment of Sindalah’s launch and the July 2026 verification log on whether it takes bookings at all; for the wider pattern, NEOM dismembered.

Fifteen Sectors Became Twelve

The sector cut is the change with the clearest commercial signal, and it is fully documented in the captures.

NEOM’s own Sindalah page, captured 22 May 2026, stated the count explicitly: “At NEOM we are redefining business, livability and conservation across 15 sectors” [S8]. By 7 July 2026 the navigation carried twelve [S10]. The removals are not cosmetic. Manufacturing was the industrial promise attached to Oxagon; Financial Services was the pitch that NEOM would host “inclusion, innovation and green financing” — the sector most directly aimed at the international capital NEOM needs. Both are gone from the highlighted list.

That reads consistently with where PIF says the money is going. Al-Rumayyan told Al Arabiya on 15 April 2026 that Oxagon — an industrial hub with a seaport and data centers — was the more suitable focus for investment, and that other NEOM projects might be postponed [S6]. Our Oxagon reality check tests that claim against the construction record, and The Line’s cost per kilometre sets out the arithmetic that makes Oxagon the cheaper bet.

Why Did NEOM Change Its Website?

NEOM says it was a routine platform update. Asked by AGBI about the changes, a NEOM spokesperson said:

“We routinely update our digital platforms to enhance user experience, and this should not be interpreted as signalling any change to our long-term vision or commitment to our developments.” [S1]

That statement should be carried in full and taken at face value as the company’s position. It is also the only public comment NEOM has made on the deletions; the company has issued no press release, no investor note and no changelog identifying what was removed.

Two observations sit alongside it without contradicting it. First, a user-experience refresh does not require deleting a quotation from the Chairman of the Board, a named Chief Development Officer, and the project’s stated dimensions. Second, the changes track a documented reallocation of capital. Al-Rumayyan told FII PRIORITY Europe in Rome on 23 June 2026 that PIF is directing 80% of its capital domestically, cutting the foreign allocation to 20% from a peak of 30%, and said: “Now our new strategy is to bring the world back to Saudi” [S4]. A website that no longer advertises 9 million residents, financial services and boutique hotels is a website addressed to a different audience.

The Official Position: No Cancellations, Only Reprioritisation

Saudi officials have been consistent, on the record, that nothing has been cancelled — and that position must be reported alongside the deletions rather than instead of them.

Al-Rumayyan, Governor of the Public Investment Fund and Chairman of the FII Institute, told Al Arabiya on 15 April 2026 that no project within NEOM had been cancelled so far, and that the master developer had instead been directed to reprioritise its plans. On whether The Line must be finished by 2030, he said: “Is it necessary to complete The Line by 2030? I believe not.” He added that NEOM’s board and the PIF board had issued directives and that the company was “currently reviewing how to achieve all — or part — of its objectives more efficiently from a financial standpoint” [S6].

Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan set out the doctrine at a budget briefing in Riyadh on 2 December 2025: “We have no ego, absolutely no ego.” Saudi Arabia would adjust, accelerate, defer or cancel projects “without blinking” if the economics required it, he said, adding that “spending efficiency doesn’t mean cutting spending. It means decreasing spending on some items to increase on others” [S7].

Both statements are compatible with everything in the archives. Nothing here shows a cancellation. What the archives show is a change in what is being promised, made without an announcement — which is precisely the gap al-Jadaan’s doctrine leaves open. A government that will adjust “without blinking” has told you it will adjust; it has not told you it will tell you when.

One reported claim must be graded separately. Semafor reported on 22 May 2026, citing people familiar with the matter, that NEOM had halted work on The Line until at least after 2030 and would temporarily stop construction at Trojena, shifting effort to Oxagon, with around $16bn in NEOM’s 2026–2030 budget earmarked for payments to terminate long-term contractor agreements [S5]. That reporting rests on anonymous sourcing and has never been officially confirmed. Al-Rumayyan’s April statement that no projects had been cancelled remains the only on-the-record position. Our delivery-risk scorecard for NEOM and the giga-project status hub track both grades side by side.

Can You Still See the Old NEOM Website?

Yes. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine at web.archive.org holds captures of neom.com going back years. Enter the URL neom.com/en-us/regions/theline and select any capture dated before June 2026 to read the original description in full. The 1 June 2026 capture used throughout this article is the last one we located that still carries the original text [S2].

Three practical notes for anyone checking the record. The Sindalah page can only be read at its old URL through the archive, because the live URL now redirects to Islands of NEOM. Some captures are stored gzip-compressed and render as illegible characters in a plain browser view; the id_ raw-capture modifier in the Wayback URL returns the original document. And capture frequency is uneven — the gap between the 1 June and 21 June 2026 snapshots of The Line page is why the change window can be narrowed only to those twenty days, not to a single date.

Why This Matters for Vision 2030

Because The Line’s specification was never only a construction target. It was the proof-of-concept for the whole Vision 2030 proposition that Saudi Arabia could buy its way past the standard sequence of urban development — that a country could skip to the finished city.

Three consequences follow from the deletions specifically, as distinct from the delays.

The baseline for measuring delivery has been removed. You cannot mark a project against 170 kilometres and 9 million residents if the developer no longer publishes those numbers. “Phased, demand-led” is unfalsifiable by construction: any pace of building satisfies it, and any pause is demand-led by definition. Every published assessment of The Line’s progress — including ours, and the Vision 2030 KPI record — now measures against a target the promisor has withdrawn.

The environmental claim was load-bearing and is now qualified. The 100% renewable energy and zero-carbon claims did substantial reputational work for NEOM internationally, and connected directly to the green-hydrogen build-out we cover in NEOM’s hydrogen works. Downgrading “will run on 100% renewable energy” to “prioritizes renewable energy systems” changes what NEOM can be held to.

It sets a precedent for the rest of the portfolio. NEOM Company is a PIF portfolio company, and the same reprioritisation logic applies across the giga-projects. If specification changes can be executed by content management rather than announcement, the published record for Trojena, the Red Sea developments and New Murabba becomes a snapshot rather than a commitment. Our survey of the giga-project graveyard covers what has already gone that way.

Risks, Contradictions and Open Questions

Several things remain genuinely unresolved, and the article should not imply otherwise.

The change window is twenty days, not a date. Archive capture frequency is what it is. The Line page changed between 1 and 21 June 2026; the regions restructure was live by 17 June. We cannot pin the deployment to a day, and NEOM has published no changelog.

Deletion is evidence of a messaging decision, not of a design decision. Nothing in the captures proves The Line is no longer intended to be car-free, 170 kilometres long, or renewable-powered. It proves NEOM stopped publishing those claims. Anyone reading the archives as proof of cancellation is over-reading them — and would run into Al-Rumayyan’s April denial.

The hotel count conflicts. AGBI reports 15 boutique hotels removed from Magna; the archived Magna page refers to 14 hotels and resorts. We could not reconcile the two from primary captures.

Epicon’s tower heights are AGBI’s, not ours. The archived Epicon page we retrieved describes room counts, not tower heights. We verified the page is gone; we did not verify the 225-metre and 275-metre figures from the capture.

The “Invest” menu removal is real but unexplained. The Invest menu, NEOM Investment Office, NEOM Investment Fund and Suppliers links disappeared from the main navigation between the 21 and 25 June 2026 captures, while an “Invest in NEOM” link survives in the footer. Whether that is a restructure of the investor-relations function or a navigation simplification is not established, and NEOM has not commented on it.

No Arabic-language comparison has been made. This analysis covers the en-us tree only. Whether NEOM’s Arabic pages were rewritten in the same waves is unknown, and would be a meaningful test of whether the change targeted international audiences specifically.

What to Watch Next

• NEOM’s next annual review or PIF’s 2025 annual report disclosures on NEOM Company — the first place a written restatement of The Line’s scope would have to appear if one exists.
• Whether the 9 million and 170km figures return. If the deletions were a temporary refresh, as the “user experience” statement implies, restoration is the test. As of 31 July 2026 they have been absent for over six weeks.
• The FII PRIORITY and Future Investment Initiative programmes — Al-Rumayyan has used both to disclose scope changes before the website reflects them. The next Riyadh FII edition is the likeliest venue for a phase-one specification.
• Contractor terminations. If Semafor’s reported $16bn termination provision is real, it will surface in contractor disclosures and Saudi tender records long before NEOM confirms it.
• Whether Trojena’s page follows. Trojena retains a standalone page with hard figures (Jabal Al-Lawz, altitudes to 2,600 m). It is the obvious next candidate for the same treatment, and it hosts the 2029 Asian Winter Games.
• The Arabic-language pages, for the reason given above.

Related Vision 2030 Context

• The Line: Saudi Arabia’s 170km linear city — the full original specification, cost history and status. That page owns the project entity; this one owns the deletion event.
• The Line progress, cost and reality check 2026 — what is confirmed built, against what was promised.
• NEOM: the project explained and NEOM Company — the developer and its governance.
• NEOM dismembered — how the masterplan was broken into separable pieces.
• Oxagon industrial city reality check — the project PIF now calls the priority.
• Sindalah island launch status — the destination now folded into Islands of NEOM.
• Saudi giga-project status hub and the giga-project graveyard — portfolio-wide delivery tracking.
• NEOM delivery risk scorecard 2026 — evidence grades across the NEOM programme.

Sources

• [S1] AGBI (Arabian Gulf Business Insight), Megha Merani, “Neom Giga-Project Rewrites Pitch for ‘The Line’”, analysis, 13 July 2026. https://www.agbi.com/analysis/giga-projects/2026/07/neom-rebrands-the-line-as-costs-and-complexity-bite/
• [S2] Internet Archive Wayback Machine, capture of NEOM, “THE LINE: A revolution in urban living”, 1 June 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20260601105723/https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline
• [S3] Internet Archive Wayback Machine, capture of NEOM, “THE LINE: A New Urban Future”, 21 June 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20260621164645/https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/theline
• [S4] Fortune, Melissa Hancock, “Saudi PIF’s Governor Wants the Kingdom to Become a Global Investment Center”, report from FII PRIORITY Europe, Rome, 23 June 2026. https://fortune.com/2026/06/23/saudi-sovereign-wealth-fund-kingdom-global-investment-center/
• [S5] Semafor, “Exclusive: Saudi’s NEOM Halts Work on The Line Until After 2030”, news report citing people familiar with the plans, 22 May 2026. https://www.semafor.com/article/05/22/2026/saudis-neom-halts-work-on-the-line-until-after-2030
• [S6] Argaam, “PIF Governor Says No Projects Canceled in NEOM So Far”, report of Yasir Al-Rumayyan’s interview with Al Arabiya, 15 April 2026. https://www.argaam.com/en/article/articledetail/id/1896867 (Al Arabiya’s own English page blocked automated retrieval on 31 July 2026; Argaam and Saudi Gazette carried the same interview.)
• [S7] Middle East Eye, “Saudi Arabia Has ‘No Ego’ to Prevent It From Cancelling Megaprojects, Finance Minister Says”, report of Mohammed al-Jadaan’s Riyadh budget briefing, 3 December 2025. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-has-no-ego-prevent-it-cancelling-megaprojects-finance-minister-says
• [S8] Internet Archive Wayback Machine, capture of NEOM, “Sindalah: A luxury island in the Red Sea”, 22 May 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20260522041545/https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/sindalah
• [S9] Internet Archive Wayback Machine, capture of NEOM, “Our Region: A New Model for Industry and Living”, 17 June 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20260617131250/https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions
• [S10] Internet Archive Wayback Machine, captures of NEOM’s Magna page, 1 June 2026 and 7 July 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20260601022347/https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/magna and https://web.archive.org/web/20260707201240/https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/magna
• [S11] NEOM, “Islands of NEOM: A Gateway to the Red Sea”, corporate website, retrieved 31 July 2026. https://www.neom.com/en-us/regions/islands-of-neom
• [S12] The National, “Saudi Arabia’s PIF Targets 80 Per Cent Domestic Investment in New Five-Year Strategy”, news report, 15 April 2026. https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/economy/2026/04/15/saudi-arabias-pif-targets-80-domestic-allocation-cuts-overseas-share-to-20/