Despite Saudi Arabia's new oil wealth, extravagant spending leads to governmental deficits and foreign borrowing in the 1950s.

Financial and administrative affairs become too complex to be conducted simply on the personal authority of the king, who possesses neither the ability nor the inclination to cope with these problems.

Sa'ud so mismanages the financial affairs of the state that he is forced to reconstitute the council of ministers and give full executive powers to Faysal as its president.

In 1957, Sa'ud became the first Saudi monarch to visit the United States.

In March of the following year, Sa'ud, bowing to pressure from the modernizers at the royal court, issues a decree transferring all executive power to his brother Faysal.