American businessman Joshua Kushner

The USA reported Lakers sale would value the entire franchise at $12.5 billion and transfer Mark Walter's controlling interest to a group led by Josh Kushner and Bob Iger. The Lakers are not officially under new ownership yet.Josh Kushner is buying the Los Angeles Lakers alongside former Disney chief Bob Iger in a deal worth $17.7 billion. It would be the highest price ever paid for an American sports franchise. But the venture capitalist's family ties to Donald Trump have become the story's biggest talking point.

White House rejects speculation that the administration played any part in the sale

Kushner and Iger are buying the team from Mark Walter, who only took majority control of the Lakers a year ago in a deal that valued the franchise at $14 billion. The NBA's board approved the governors' transaction in October.Walter is currently the subject of a federal investigation into alleged financial improprieties involving insurance companies under his control, according to reports from last month. Walter also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers.

So, the timing of that investigation, paired with Josh Kushner's family connections, fueled speculation online that Donald Trump's administration had a hand in pressuring Walter to sell. Joshua Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law.

He owned a real-estate firm with his brother that gave slumlord vibes
Josh and Jared previously co-owned a Maryland property-management company, JK2, that a judge found “repeatedly violated state consumer protection laws by collecting debts without required licenses, charging tenants improper fees and misrepresenting the condition of rental units.”

He’s definitely not MAGA
Kushner the younger is a lifelong Democrat. In 2016, he went on the record to declare he would not vote for Trump. In 2017, he attended the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., and the same year told Forbes, “It is no secret that liberal values have guided my life and that I have supported political leaders that share similar values.” In 2024, he donated $250,000 to Growth Democrats, a political-action committee.

His wife is a fellow Dem who has somehow never met Donald Trump
In 2018, Josh married model and entrepreneur Karlie Kloss, who also did not vote for Trump. In fact, in an interview with Bloomberg last month — in which she reaffirmed that she’s a Democrat — she said she has never met the president, which definitely seems like a purposeful choice. She contributed to Barack Obama’s Presidential Center and wrote glowingly of the former president on Instagram when the center opened in June, including a photo of her beaming while shaking his hand. She has also been a major advocate for abortion access in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned.

The couple owns a bunch of iconic magazines
In 2024, Kloss and Kushner’s Bedford Media announced it would be reviving Life magazine. (Puck’s Lauren Sherman reported this week that former New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren and former Bloomberg Businessweek creative director Richard Turley are shaping the reboot.) The media group also owns i-D magazine, and Kloss is a part owner of W magazine.

Kushner and Kloss attended (America’s) royal wedding

After conflicting reports about whether they snagged an invite, the couple attended Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s Fourth of July weekend wedding.

The White House shut down those claims on Thursday. "This has nothing to do with President Trump or his administration," a statement to Front Office Sports read. Thrive Capital, Kushner's venture capital firm, issued its own denial, calling the speculation "false."However, the Lakers deal lands just weeks after Kushner found himself at the center of a separate controversy involving FIFA. In July, football's global governing body proposed creating a $28 billion commercial subsidiary to house its World Cup and event-related businesses. In other words, it involves selling minority stakes to outside investors.Kushner's firm, Thrive Eternal, was expected to lead that investor group. It could have also raised more than $5.6 billion for FIFA. European football officials pushed back hard, and FIFA later shelved the plan, though it said consultations would continue.Now, what comes next for the Lakers has been clarified by Iger and Kushner. "We have immense respect for the leadership and vision of Jerry and Jeanie Buss. Our long-term commitment is to build on that foundation and compete at the highest level. And serve this extraordinary team, its fans, and the city of Los Angeles (via Nine)."

The post Josh Kushner Is Buying the Lakers & His Donald Trump Connection Is Drawing Attention appeared first on Mandatory.

The reported deal still requires NBA Board of Governors approval, but it would establish a record valuation for a professional-sports franchise if completed. The agreement is reported to value the Lakers at $12.5 USA billion. Walter currently controls the team. Kushner and Iger would become the controlling owners only after the league approves the transaction.

USA New York — Kushner’s Thrive is also a pivotal investor in OpenAI, most recently funneling another $1 billion to the company in December, CNBC reported. He shares a close working relationship with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.“Josh makes high-conviction bets on high-quality companies and founders, and he doesn’t care too much about what other investors think. I feel a lot of camaraderie with that,” Altman told Fortune in 2024.Josh, born in New Jersey, is the son of real estate tycoon Charles Kushner. He’s the younger brother of Jared Kushner, who is more well known these days as the son-in-law of President Donald Trump. His father Charles was pardoned by Trump in 2020 over a 2005 conviction on federal tax USA evasion charges.Josh Kushner doesn’t give many interviews or make public appearances often, but he’s keen on making headlines.

Kushner, the brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared, announced that he was teaming up with former Disney CEO Bob Iger to buy the Los Angeles Lakers for a record-breaking $12.5 billion.

It’s just one of many flashy deals and investments involving the 41-year-old as of late. His successful career as founder of Thrive Capital, a venture capital firm that raised more than $10 billion in its latest round, has served as a springboard to build his status as a powerful mogul.

“I think Thrive is a very small percentage of its potential. I feel like we’re just USA getting started,” Kushner said in a February podcast, frequently mentioning loyalty and humility as his core leadership values.

“I believe that my word, the word of the firm, is more important than anything else,” he continued.Thrive has amassed a massive portfolio, ranging from early investments in high-profile technology companies like OpenAI and SpaceX, to trendy brands such as Spotify, Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS and movie studio A24. It’s also involved in sports, owning minority portions of the San Francisco Giants and the Miami Heat.The New York-based firm also has an offshoot, called Thrive Holdings, which invests in companies that are working to modernize traditionally old-school industries through AI.“I think this is the most important moment in our lifetimes. In many respects AI is underhyped,” Kushner said in a 2025 interview at the tech and policy summit The Hill & Valley Forum.Josh, however, has largely steered clear of associating himself with the Trump family. Rather, he’s building one of his own with model Karlie Kloss, who married in 2018 and have three children. The pair are regulars at the Met Gala.

Still, the two have not been fully able to separate themselves from his family. (“Not even to dinner with the Kushners?,” one contestant on reality TV show Project Runway infamously quipped to Kloss over criticism about a dress designed for her.)

In the absence of an investor day this year, Josh Kushner wrote his first formal letter to backers for his investment firm Thrive.

While Kushner most recently made headlines for his $12.5 billion agreement to buy the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team alongside former Walt Disney Co. chief Bob Iger, his company also manages more than $65 billion dollars worth of assets and has seen the value of its portfolio companies surge over the past 15 years.

“I’m sure I’m not the only person in this country who does not necessarily agree with their family on politics,” Kloss said in a later interview. “… my man and I have been through a lot together and you know I’m so proud that he’s my partner.”

Kushner said in 2017 that “It is no secret that liberal values have guided my life and that I have supported political leaders that share similar values.”

Kushner also founded Oscar Health in 2012, a health insurance company that initially capitalized on the creation of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces and recently posted record profits.

According to Forbes, Kushner is worth about $5 billion.

Still, not all of his bets are successful: Last month Kushner’s Thrive Eternal was part of a controversial —and quickly scrapped — plan with FIFA to sell private stakes in upcoming World Cup tournaments. FIFA said that the money generated will be reinvested back into the sport.

Josh Kushner founded and runs VC firm Thrive Capital, which has backed some of the past decade's most notable startups, including Instagram, Spotify, Stripe and OpenAI.
Thrive was valued at $5.3 billion in a $175 million funding round in January 2023; Kushner is estimated to own a 66% stake.
Thrive's investors include Disney CEO Bob Iger and a handful of billionaires: Henry Kravis, Mukesh Ambani, Jorge Paulo Lemann and Xavier Niel.
Thrive raised $5 billion for its ninth fund in August 2024; the firm now manages approximately $25 billion in assets.
The liberal Kushner cofounded a health insurance company built around Obamacare before his brother Jared's father-in-law Donald Trump became president.
He is the son of real estate tycoon Charles Kushner, who became Trump's ambassador to France in May 2025.

Kushner’s purchase of the Lakers “serves as a way to put the FIFA controversy behind him quickly and almost turn a new leaf in the sports sector,” Mark Conrad, professor of law and ethics at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, told CNN over email.

Joshua Kushner, a venture capital investor, has made many moves in the sports world in the past few years. He bought stakes in the Memphis Grizzlies and Miami Heat basketball teams and the San Francisco Giants baseball team. And he was involved in an eventually scuttled attempt to purchase a piece of FIFA, the international soccer organization.

Now Mr. Kushner and Bob Iger, the former Disney chief executive, are buying a majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers at a valuation of $12.5 billion.

Mr. Kushner has a recognizable last name. His brother is Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, who runs a private equity firm and was a top adviser in the first Trump administration. But Joshua Kushner has a much lower public profile, and different politics. He has supported Democrats in recent years.

Here is look at Mr. Kushner’s investment track record and how the deal for the Lakers will work.

Thrive, which has more than $60 billion in assets under management, has three lines of business: Thrive Capital, which invests in growth companies like OpenAI, SpaceX and Stripe; Thrive Holdings, which invests in and transforms companies affected by artificial intelligence; and Thrive Eternal, which invests in businesses that it believes will not be significantly disrupted by A.I.

Mr. Kushner’s investment in the Lakers, which still requires approval by the National Basketball Association, was done partly through Thrive Eternal, which the firm launched this spring. Thrive Eternal’s first investment was in the San Francisco Giants. Mr. Kushner also has a stake in the Heat, though he would have to sell that investment if the N.B.A. approves the Lakers deal. (He sold his stake in the Grizzlies before investing in the Heat.)This summer, Thrive Eternal was among a group of investors vying to buy a 20 percent stake in FIFA in a proposed multibillion-dollar deal that many feared would upend global soccer.

Mark Walter's time as the Los Angeles Lakers' owner did not last long. A year after purchasing a controlling interest in the team, Walter will sell the Lakers to a group led by Josh Kushner and Bob Iger for a record $12.5 billion, according to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne.

Kushner and Iger were reportedly involved in an expansion process to get an NBA team in Las Vegas, but pivoted to make a massive offer for the Lakers. The deal came together quickly, per Shelburne, who said Kushner and Iger approached Walter with the offer Sunday.Walter, who also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers, purchased the Lakers from the Buss family for a then-record $10 billion last June. Despite selling controlling interest in the team, Jeanie Buss remained the Lakers' governor. At the time, Buss and Walter reportedly worked out an agreement that would keep Buss in that role for the next five years, per Marc Stein. Iger said Wednesday the new ownership group would honor that agreement.

Despite selling the Lakers, Walter will reportedly keep the Dodgers, per ESPN.

With the move, Walter is set to make a $2.5 billion profit on the team after a little over a year. That's quite the return on investment for a team that Jerry Buss purchased for $67.5 million in 1979.

There’s a Kushner who has been in the news a whole lot lately, and for the first time in a while it’s not Jared. Sure, the first son-in-law still gets plenty of press for the bang-up job he’s been doing on behalf of the Trump administration in Iran, Gaza, and Ukraine and for the mass protests he and Ivanka have inspired in Albania with their little island project. But recently it’s Jared’s younger brother, Josh, who seems to be everywhere: buying the Lakers with the former president of Disney; at the center of the FIFA imbroglio; plowing billions into AI; attending Taylor Swift’s wedding.

As the younger Kushner has historically kept a much lower profile than his big bro, you may have questions such as, How does Josh feel about Donald Trump? Is he richer than Jared? Does he also believe he can bring peace to the Middle East on account of having read 25 books on Israeli-Palestinian relations? Herewith, a Josh Kushner primer.

When the news broke on Wednesday that Kushner, along with former Disney chief Bob Iger, was buying the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal valuing the NBA franchise at $12.5 billion, the response from many was, Wait, what? Didn’t someone else just buy the team? That confusion was likely based on the fact that, yes, only just last summer, investor Mark Walter had purchased a controlling stake in the Lakers, then valuing the team at $10 billion. According to The Athletic, “Kushner reached out to Walter on Friday and the deal quickly came together over the weekend … Walter, per the source, wasn’t necessarily looking to sell — the offer from Kushner and Iger was just too good to pass up.”

Kushner previously owned a minority stake in the Memphis Grizzlies and currently owns a minority stake in the Miami Heat, which he will now have to sell. He and Iger were introduced by Kushner’s then-girlfriend (now-wife) Karlie Kloss. According to the New York Times, Kushner’s Lakers investment “was done partly through Thrive Eternal,” the arm of his company, Thrive, which invests long term in businesses “it believes will not be significantly disrupted by AI.”

Apropos of nothing, Walter is a friend of Donald Trump’s and is currently being investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible fraud. So the sale to the brother of Trump’s son-in-law has made some people at the very least let out an audible hmmm, but the White House is here to say there’s absolutely nothing to see here, telling Front Office Sports the deal “has nothing to do with President Trump or his administration.”

Earlier this month, FIFA chief Gianni Infantino — another close pal of the president — announced a plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to investors, a scheme that swiftly crashed and burned and may cost the guy his job. Kushner’s firm was set to play a key role in the plan and “leverage its own investment by courting long-term institutional investors from around the world … relying principally on sovereign wealth funds.”

Posted on 2026/08/14 08:38 AM