Burj Khalifa: The Full Story of the Tower That Opened When Dubai Ran Out of Money

On 4 January 2010 Dubai opened the tallest building ever made, 828 metres high. Three weeks earlier its neighbour Abu Dhabi had handed over 10 billion dollars to stop Dubai missing its debts, so on opening night the Burj Dubai became the Burj Khalifa. Ten months later 825 of its 900 homes were still empty. This is the full story, from the pearl divers and the small oil find that forced Dubai to reinvent itself, to how the tower was built, how it stands up to the wind, why it was renamed, the stunts that put it on every screen, what it takes to run it, how the bet paid off, and how 2026 is testing it again. 0:00 828 metres, a city out of money 0:56 Dubai before the tower: pearls, oil and ports 3:18 The idea: sell a city with one tower 4:22 How do you stop it falling over? 5:39 The people who built it 6:16 The race to the top 8:16 The crash 10:27 Opening night and the new name 11:21 The empty years 12:04 How the bet paid off: the stunts 13:43 Inside the tower 15:34 The comeback 18:43 2026: the bet tested again 19:57 The challenger in Jeddah 20:24 Four lessons This film is for information and education only. It is not financial advice. Forecasts are forecasts, estimates are named as estimates, and the 2026 war is described from the public record only. Sources Baker, Korista and Novak, Engineering the World's Tallest: Burj Dubai, CTBUH 8th World Congress (2008) Khaleej Times interview with structural engineer Bill Baker (January 2025, updated January 2026); Gulf News on the secret height The National on the history of the tower (January 2023) and on Burj Khalifa offices (5 January 2010) BESIX project page for the Burj Khalifa; Wikipedia summary of public construction figures Associated Press, 4 January 2010 (opening, renaming, Abu Dhabi support, prices); The Globe and Mail, January 2010 The National on the Dubai World restructuring (March 2010); GlobeSt, 14 December 2009 Human Rights Watch, Building Towers, Cheating Workers (11 November 2006) Gulf News (23 October 2010) and TIME (22 October 2010) on empty apartments and rents Gulf News on the tower's 16th anniversary (3 January 2026); Emaar 2025 results (12 February 2026) Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism via Khaleej Times, Gulf Business, Gulf News and Walaw (2026) Al Jazeera (31 March 2026), The National (7 October 2026), Arabian Post and S&P Global Ratings (October 2026), Gulf News (12 October 2026) Bayut and Propsearch listing data (September 2026) Gulf Business (5 October 2026) and AGBI on the Jeddah Tower Gulf News and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority on Sheikh Rashid and Dubai's history; Qatar Digital Library on pearling; AGBI on Dubai's oil (January 2026) Oxford Business Group (2014, 2019); Colliers, Cluttons and Knight Frank market reports via Gulf News and The National (2008 to 2013) Reuters, AFP and The National on the 2009 crash, the Dubai World deals (2010, 2015) and the 2014 rollover burjkhalifa.ae, CTBUH, SOM and Guinness World Records on the tower's lifts, cooling, cleaning and records Al Jazeera, NPR and Arab News on the Address Downtown fire (2015); NPR on the April 2024 rain Dubai Land Department (2024, 2025 results); The National and Gulf Business on Burj Khalifa sales in 2024; BIE on Expo 2020 Footage and images Maps: Natural Earth (public domain). Animations: our own. Stock footage: Pexels (Pexels License). Wikimedia Commons authors, by licence: CC BY 2.0: Aliosha Bielenberg from Providence, Unit; Dar'ya Sip from US; Joi Ito from Cambridge, MA, USA; Like My Travel from Peru; Marco Becerra from Lewisville, TX, USA; Peter Chovanec; Robert Scoble; Ryan Lackey from Palo Alto, CA, US; Sergei Gussev; Timothy Brown; imran shahabuddin; shankar s. from Dubai, united arab emira; stepnout from San Francisco, USA; unknown. CC BY 3.0: Francisco Anzola; Ravi Kumar; giggel; meisam hassanzadeh. CC BY 4.0: M108t. CC BY-SA 2.0: Alec Wilson from Khon Kaen, Thailand; Gavin from Dublin, Ireland; Jimmy Baikovicius from Montevideo, Urugu; Kathrin Mezger from Reulingen, Germany; Laika ac; Lars Plougmann from United States. CC BY-SA 3.0: Aeroprints.com; Donaldytong; Helmut Pfau; Johannes Geiger; Piotr Zarobkiewicz; trolvag. CC BY-SA 4.0: Calistemon; Davide Mauro; Heba Hashem; Shyjith Kaiprath Rajan; Skatebiker. CC0: Aleksandar Pasaric; https://pixabay.com/users/bulletrain743-. Public domain (US government works, via Wikimedia Commons): Diligent; Member of the Expedition 22 crew.; NASA; NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center; Paul Wilhelm. #burjkhalifa #dubai #documentary