Saudi Royal Court focus of twitter crossfire

The appointment of Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz in late March has reignited a generational rift within the Saudi royal family, with some grandchildren of the kingdom’s founder, Abdulaziz al-Saud, fearing they will miss out on taking up leadership positions.

A few royal grandchildren have specifically targeted President of the Royal Court Khaled al-Tuwaijri via social media, accusing him of suspicious and corrupt goals.

Since Muqrin’s appointment, Saudis have begun to increasingly follow the social media accounts of some of these royal grandchildren. They began to boldly express, in an unprecedented way, their opposition to Muqrin’s appointment as second-in-line to the crown prince. They were not content with merely announcing their anger outside of the councils and meetings of the royal family, but went as far as to politically target Tuwaijri and accuse him of corruption, conspiracy and exploiting his post.

Prince Khaled bin Talal was the first to launch an attack on Twitter against Tuwaijri, although without explicitly naming him, tweeting, "The "Supreme Leader" (referring to Tuwaijri) has opened his own Court on Twitter …!! Instead of the Royal Court..!! In compensation for the affairs of citizens that had disrupted and accumulated all these years." Then another grandson, Prince Saud bin Saif al-Nasr targeted Tuwaijri openly, directly accusing him of corruption over a series of tweets.