A former senior executive of Neom's ski project told the BBC he had heard about the killing of Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti a few weeks before leaving his native US for the role in 2020. Andy Wirth says he repeatedly asked his employers about the evictions, but was not satisfied with the answers.
"It just reeked of something terrible [that] had been exacted upon these people… You don't step on their throats with your boot heels so you can advance," he said.
He left the project less than a year after joining it, disenchanted with its management.
A chief executive of a British desalination company who pulled out of a $100m (£80m) project for The Line in 2022 is also extremely critical.
"It might be good for some high-tech people living in that area, but what about the rest?" said Malcolm Aw, the CEO of Solar Water PLC.
The local population should be seen as valuable assets, he added, given how well they understand the area.
"You should seek that advice to improve, to create, recreate, without removing them."
Displaced villagers were extremely reluctant to comment, fearing that speaking to foreign media could further endanger their detained relatives.
But we spoke to those evicted elsewhere for another Saudi Vision 2030 scheme. More than a million people have been displaced for the Jeddah Central project in the western Saudi Arabian city - set to include an opera house, sporting district, and high-end retail and residential units.
Nader Hijazi [not his real name] grew up in Aziziyah - one of approximately 63 neighbourhoods affected by those demolitions. His father's home was razed in 2021, for which he received less than a month's warning.
Hijazi says the photos he had seen of his former neighbourhood were shocking, saying they evoked a warzone.
"They're waging a war on people, a war on our identities."
Saudi activists told the BBC of two individuals arrested last year in connection with the Jeddah demolitions - one for physically resisting eviction, the other for posting photos of anti-demolition graffiti on his social media.
And a relative of a detainee in Jeddah's Dhahban Central Prison said they had heard accounts of a further 15 people being held there - reportedly for staging a farewell gathering in one of the neighbourhoods marked for demolition. The difficulty of contacting those inside Saudi prisons means we have not been able to verify this.
ALQST surveyed 35 evicted people from Jeddah neighbourhoods. Of those, none say they had received compensation, or sufficient warning, in accordance with local law, and more than half said they had been forced out of their homes under threat of arrest.