PARIS — Saudi Arabia is pouring $20 billion into a new investment fund run by Wall Street’s Blackstone Group. The French oil giant Total just inked a nine-billion-euro petrochemical deal with the kingdom. The British defense company BAE Systems is selling 48 Typhoon combat jets to Riyadh for an estimated five billion British pounds.

The world’s biggest companies might be talking about distancing themselves from Saudi Arabia amid a growing furor over the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But as American and European executives pull out of a showcase Saudi investment conference next week to avoid controversy, many companies are so deeply invested that they are unlikely to sever ties or avert future deals with the oil-rich kingdom.

Companies are still assessing the situation, which shifted rapidly as the kingdom announced on Friday that Mr. Khashoggi was dead and that it had arrested 18 Saudis in the case. But short of sanctions on Saudi Arabia, or a wholesale change in policy by the United States, Britain or other governments to curb political or commercial ties, big business won’t readily quit its relations with Riyadh.

“Saudi Arabia still has enormous wealth and powerful cachet,” said Bruce O. Riedel, a former C.I.A. analyst and an expert on Saudi Arabia at the Brookings Institution. “It will continue to be a crucial economic player, and it cannot be ignored. The question is whether business as usual will go on.”