Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman bails on Saudi finance conference

Stephen Schwarzman, founder and CEO of The Blackstone Group, no longer plans to attend the Future Investment Initiative, hosted by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, Axios has learned.

• This comes after earlier Wall Street withdrawals from J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

What to watch: Blackstone's earnings call is this Thursday, and expect the investment giant to address the country's role as the cornerstone investor in a large global infrastructure fund that Blackstone continues to raise.