Thanks in part to his controversial, Saudi-backed private equity firm Affinity Partners, Trump’s son-in-law’s fortune is approaching ten figures. A Trump victory would likely get him there sooner.
By Giacomo Tognini and Monica Hunter-Hart, Staff
On September 15, 2020, Jared Kushner stood on the South Lawn at the White House and watched the culmination of his four years of Middle East diplomacy: the signing of the Abraham Accords, a set of normalization agreements he’d helped negotiate with Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain that were meant to promote regional peace by establishing relations and encouraging investment ties. Kushner, 43, who is married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and served as a senior advisor in the Trump administration, recalled feeling “exhausted but profoundly happy” in his 2022 memoir: “After a long and hard journey, we had accomplished the unthinkable: we had made peace in the Middle East.”
Four years later, Israel and Hamas are embroiled in an expanding war that’s killed an estimated 1,600 Israelis and 44,000 Palestinians. As the conflict escalates, Kushner remains committed to the idea that economic investment between Israel and the Gulf can improve relations and bring peace to the region. Since leaving politics in 2021, he’s pursued the same Middle East ambitions—and used his powerful connections—to create a $3 billion (assets) private equity firm, adding an estimated $170 million to his fortune, despite having little track record in the sector.
“Doing peace deals in that part of the world is a lot harder than doing business deals. My track record of success in the region is second to none,” Kushner tells in a recent interview.
Kushner set up Affinity Partners in the Miami suburb of Sunny Isles Beach in January 2021, the same month his father-in-law left the White House and settled at Mar-a-Lago. He has raised $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s $925 billion sovereign wealth fund and more than $400 million in investments from wealth funds in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Roughly $600 million in additional funds came from an unnamed investor and Taiwanese billionaire Terry Gou, whose Foxconn makes the majority of the world’s iPhones. (Kushner helped negotiate subsidies for a Foxconn factory in Wisconsin while at the White House.)
“They trust me, and they want to start building ties with Israel,” Kushner says of his Gulf investors. “To help them find good investments in Israel, I think that that’s a very important and exciting thing.”
Affinity has helped boost Kushner’s net worth to at least $900 million, up 180% from early 2017, when he became senior advisor to Trump. Back then, Kushner was worth just $324 million, according to a personal financial statement obtained by the New York Times. Both then and now, more than half of his wealth—about $580 million at present—consists of his 20% stake in his family’s decades-old, New York City-based real estate firm, Kushner Companies, which he ran as CEO from age 27 to 36. (His net worth more than tripled between 2011 and 2016 when he was managing the real estate.) His fortune includes an estimated $150 million in cash, artwork, other investments and his stake in his and Ivanka’s Miami home. Kushner declined to comment on his net worth, other than stating he isn’t a billionaire yet.
values Kushner independently of Ivanka, who is worth about $50 million. Her 78-year-old father has yet to give her—or the rest of his children—a significant stake in any of his major assets, besides his D.C. hotel, which they’ve since sold.
Though Kushner Companies has been flourishing in recent years, it’s Kushner’s newer, controversial private equity bet that’s pushing him close to billionaire territory. Based on conversations with seven private equity stake investors and analysts, conservatively estimates that Affinity is now worth $170 million to Kushner—the firm’s sole owner—a sum that includes $31 million he’s invested in the firm, $12 million in after-tax fees he’s already collected and another $130 million in expected fees and profits over the approximately ten-year life of the firm’s only fund through 2031. Affinity, which is still ramping up, currently nets about 10%-15% of its estimated $45 million annual fee earnings.
Given that Affinity, which has 35 employees, is a young and unusual firm—it relies on a small group of rarefied investors who might not invest such massive amounts again—it’s currently worth less than well-established private equity shops of a similar size, according to the analysts and investors.
“People know who Jared Kushner is, but he’s not KKR, he’s not Blackstone. He’s an individual,” says Barclays analyst Ben Budish.
Still, that’s $170 million in personal wealth that Kushner arguably wouldn’t have garnered without his time in government. He’s set to become a billionaire before long, no matter who wins the presidential election. But a Trump victory would likely turbocharge the firm, encouraging his foreign backers to keep investing even apart from how its investments perform—and in turn boosting Kushner’s net worth even further.
“The [valuation of Affinity] should depend on whether or not Mr. Trump would be elected,” says Minmo Gahng, an assistant professor of finance at Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business, suggesting that a Trump victory could make it more valuable. “There are many uncertainties about Affinity’s future, especially if Trump loses.”
“If Trump wasn’t running, I would be able to say, ‘I have a really clear roadmap for what’s going to happen for the next five, ten years of this business,’” Kushner says. “But obviously my goal is to continue doing what we’re doing now.”
Jared Kushner and Donald Trump in the Oval Office during the 2020 announcement that Bahrain would establish diplomatic relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords.
Getty Images
Affinity had a slow start, deploying almost no capital in its first year while Kushner learned the ropes and navigated a turbulent pandemic market. But it’s since picked up the pace, and has now invested about $1.6 billion in at least eight firms in Brazil, Germany, Israel, the U.S., the U.K. and the UAE in industries ranging from finance to energy. Kushner says the firm is also investing in A.I. and data centers and is planning two real estate projects in Albania and Serbia.
“We look for growing companies. I’m not looking to buy companies to slash costs and turn them around,” says Kushner. “We find what we think are mispriced opportunities with bright futures, and we’re able to make big directional bets.”
Its most notable investments so far are the ones it’s made in Israel. In September 2023, Affinity announced a $110 million deal for a 15% stake in the automotive and credit business of the conglomerate Shlomo Group. It was the first-ever known investment by the Saudi and Qatari wealth funds in Israel, significant because neither Gulf state has diplomatic relations with Jerusalem and Kushner had to obtain waivers from both governments to make it happen. A month later, the October 7th attacks upended the Middle East.
The war hasn’t stopped Kushner from betting on the region. The Shlomo deal closed in January, and six months later, Affinity bought some $130 million in shares of publicly traded Israeli financial services firm Phoenix Financial. “It’s only brought me closer with my [investors],” says Kushner. “The fact that I’m investing Gulf money into Israel post-October 7th, that’s very important. We need to bring everyone together.”
Private equity firms do not generate returns until the end of their investment period, when they begin selling assets and returning profits to investors. With Affinity set to reach that point around 2028 or 2029, it’s still too early to determine whether the firm’s current bets will be successful (and Kushner hasn’t commented on whether he has plans to raise more money). Still, there are some early indicators. Two of its investments in publicly traded companies, Phoenix Financial and billionaire Brad Jacobs’ Connecticut-based building products distribution startup QXO, have returned 16% and 67%, respectively since Affinity invested in July. The S&P 500 is up 6% over the same period.
Affinity also invested $110 million in German fitness tech startup EGYM in 2023, a stake that’s since increased in value by 53% after a new funding round in September. “We wanted an investor with deep knowledge of the U.S. economy,” says EGYM cofounder and CEO Philipp Roesch-Schlanderer. “They’ve been great partners.” As for Jared: “He’s always available for me.”
It’s not all good news. Affinity’s $150 million investment, which it made alongside Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, in Brazilian fast food franchise operator Zamp is down 44% since Kushner invested in February. Kushner remains convinced that he got a bargain price for the Burger King franchisee, pointing to its expansion plans plus a $23 million deal to acquire the operations of Starbucks stores in Brazil.
Although Kushner is new to private equity, he’s no stranger to running a business. He first got exposed to the family real estate company as a kid, accompanying his father Charles on weekends to construction sites, working at them from age 13, and gradually helping Charles manage some properties. Kushner graduated from Harvard in 2003 and enrolled at NYU for a joint law and business degree.
The Kushner family business was abruptly derailed when his father was arrested for tax and campaign law violations in 2004. Charles Kushner tapped an old friend to run the firm, imploring his eldest son to stay in school. Despite his dad’s pleas, Jared spent most days skipping classes and driving to the then-New Jersey headquarters at 5 a.m. to help out. He still managed to graduate and his father, who was released in August 2006, tapped him to become CEO in 2008 just as the financial crisis hit. During his eight-year tenure running the firm, Jared expanded further into New York City, the Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic.
“A lot of the success the company is enjoying today is built off of the strong foundation Jared rebuilt,” says Charles Kushner, 70, whose firm is now worth $2.9 billion.
Jared and Charles Kushner at the launch of Ivanka Trump’s spring collection in Manhattan in March 2012, when Jared ran the family real estate firm as CEO.
Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Then came another change of course. After his father-in-law was elected president, Kushner packed for D.C. in 2017 to serve as his advisor. He also stepped away from Kushner Companies and the investment committee at his brother Josh’s successful venture capital firm Thrive Capital, taking what he calls “four years off from making money.” He kept his stake in the real estate company—handing the reins to Laurent Morali, a French investment banker whom he’d hired in 2008—but fully divested from Thrive, which was an early backer of Instagram and Spotify that is now worth $5.3 billion. Had he held onto that stake, he’d already be a billionaire.
His work on geopolitical issues in Washington helped set up his post-White House career move. Several experts who spoke to say it’s likely that Affinity’s investors in the Gulf had more than finances in mind when they backed the firm. It’s nearly unheard of for massive sovereign wealth funds to commit billions to a new firm with an inexperienced founder. Of the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s strategy, a former international private equity dealmaker there who asked to remain anonymous explains: “Anything that has a political angle is fair game. I’m sure that’s part of the consideration going into this. It is not purely for the returns.”
Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS) personally overrode his investment committee’s concerns about Kushner’s inexperience, according to the New York Times. Kushner argues the MBS backing was a helpful endorsement. Regarding the negative press he received afterwards, he says: “They think they’re writing a bad thing. Everyone in the business world reads that and wants to work closer with Affinity because they know that I’m very trusted by my partners.” Representatives for the Saudi Public Investment Fund and the crown prince did not respond to requests for comment.
Some have suggested the investments could be a reward of sorts for Kushner’s pro-Gulf advocacy at the White House and muted criticism of those governments’ human rights abuses, like the 2018 assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA believes was orchestrated by MBS. “Within months [of leaving] he was engaged with the Saudis in a deal for $2 billion,” says Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It looks like a payoff.”
Canter notes that although many government officials eventually enter the private sector, they don’t immediately receive compensation from foreign governments with which they’d just worked. She argues that the U.S. needs a mandated, multi-year “cooling off period” during which people can’t pursue such business relationships after leaving office. “We need to know that when a government public servant takes office, they’re not doing so to serve their post-employment private interests.”
Got a tip? Contact Giacomo Tognini at giacomo.na.tognini@proton.me or 818-207-5644 on Signal and Monica Hunter-Hart at mhunterhart@protonmail.com or 413-537-6748 on Signal.
Democratic lawmakers have targeted Affinity over ethics concerns. On October 24, Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Jamie Raskin published a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking that the Department of Justice appoint a special counsel to investigate Kushner and Affinity for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires “agents” of foreign actors to make public disclosures.
Kushner, who characterizes the letter as politically motivated, has denied all accusations of ethics violations: “We follow all the laws and rules,” he says. “There is no conflict of interest. This letter is beneath the level of seriousness that both of their chambers deserve.”
Even though Affinity was formed soon after the January 6th riots at the Capitol—when it was unclear if Trump would run for office again—some view the investments as a hedge in case he did run. Kushner has said that he and Ivanka won’t officially join any future Trump administration, but he could still informally advise Trump. “What the Saudis are getting is someone who can talk with Trump at any time,” says Mark Katz, professor emeritus of government and politics at George Mason University.
“It’s a no-lose proposition. It could help with influence with Trump, it could help if these investments actually go well,” says David Makovsky, a former senior adviser to the U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations. Adds Katz: “If Trump’s not elected, I don’t think we’re going to see more Saudi investments.”
“What I say to the critics,” says Kushner, “is this is an objective metric business, and these people are looking for returns. And I believe that we’re going to deliver great returns over time.”
Additional reporting by Matt Durot and John Hyatt.
