BEIRUT, Lebanon — Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia wowed a hall full of global investors with his plan to build a $500 billion city of the future that would attract the world’s brightest minds in business and tech.

But that was last year.

This year, many of those investors stayed away as the killing of the dissident Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi cast a shadow over the prince’s trademark investment conference and his wider ambitions to reform the kingdom’s economy.

“It is both a political and an economic crisis,” said Karen E. Young, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “The economic reform agenda is somewhat derailed. I don’t think it’s over, but this is a clear stall, mostly because it’s so dependent on foreign investment and this is the worst timing.”

The Khashoggi crisis began as Saudi Arabia was grappling with low oil prices and struggling to create jobs, lift its private sector and maintain generous, cradle-to-grave benefits for an increasingly youthful population. The international outrage over the killing has amplified those challenges by scaring off many of the foreign partners Crown Prince Mohammed is counting on to help carry out his ambitious reforms.