Joshua Kushner’s sudden rise to co-ownership of the most storied team in professional basketball might seem like it came out of the blue — but it’s been a long time coming.
A scion of the wealthy Kushner family whose older brother, Jared, is married to President Trump’s daughter, and whose father, Charles, is the U.S. ambassador to France, has successfully staked out his own lucrative business career.
He is worth an estimated $5.2 billion by Forbes.
And along the way, the New York-based entrepreneur and venture capitalist has exhibited a deep interest in sports investments.
Just this summer, there were reports that Joshua Kushner and new Laker’s co-owner Bob Iger, the former Walt Disney Co. chief executive, had hired investment bankers to consider a bid for the National Basketball Association’s expansion team in Las Vegas — before setting their sights on the Lakers.
Kushner already holds a stake that in the Miami Heat that he will divest, according to The Athletic, and previously sold a stake in the Memphis Grizzlies. His wife, model Karlie Kloss, has a stake in the WNBA’s New York Liberty.
Kushner’s Thrive Capital also was named the lead investor in FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s ill-fated plan this year to spin off a $20 billion commercial subsidiary to handle the soccer federation’s broadcast, sponsorship, ticketing and event operations.
Infantino withdrew the proposal last month after withering criticism that he was overly commercializing the sport, as well as of Kushner’s ties to Trump and his controversial presidency.
Kushner announced on X in April that he also was in the process of taking a stake in the San Francisco Giants. It was not his first interest in baseball. In 2017, he reached a preliminary agreement to buy the Miami Marlins for $1.6 billion, but the deal fell through.
Kushner’s father made his fortune in commercial and residential real estate, and early on his youngest son decided to go into business but forge his own career, even as he maintained his ties to Kushner Cos., the family firm.
After graduating from Harvard University, Kushner got his MBA from the school. But before he had even graduated in 2011, he founded his venture capital firm Thrive Capital. He also worked at top investment bank Goldman Sachs.
The venture capital firm reportedly scored with investments in Instagram, online eyewear retailer Warby Parker, music streaming service Spotify, payments processor Stripe and Elon Musk’s SpaceX long before it went public this year.
In 2012, Kushner displayed an entrepreneurial streak, co-founding Oscar, a health tech and insurer that is now publicly traded with a market capitalization of about $9 billion.
This year, Thrive raised $10 billion, it’s largest fundraising round yet, drawing investment’s from global billionaires such as India’s Mukesh Ambani, the world’s twelfth richest person, according to Bloomberg. Iger reportedly invested $175 million to purchase a 3.3% stake in Thrive.
Interest in the firm came after it scored a huge win with an investment in artificial intelligence pioneer OpenAI in January 2023, just months after the debut of ChatGPT. At the time, the startup was valued at $29 billion, and now its valuation is approaching $1 trillion.
A lifelong Democrat, Kushner attended the 2017 Women’s March in Washington, a day after Trump’s first inauguration. Kushner has funded Democratic politicians and causes almost exclusively, including $250,000 in donations to the Growth Democrats PAC during the 2024 election cycle.
“It is no secret that liberal values have guided my life and that I have supported political leaders that share similar values,” Kushner told Forbes in 2017.
In 2024, Kushner and Kloss purchased the iconic Midcentury Modern home in Malibu known as the “Wave House,” designed by famed architect Harry Gesner. According to The Wall Street Journal, the couple paid $29.5 million for the six-bedroom, 6,200-square-foot house that abuts the Pacific Ocean — $20 million less than the asking price when it was listed for sale in 2023.
Kushner, however, has not been able to shed his controversial association with his family or the family real estate firm.
A property management company owned by the family in 2022 agreed to pay $3.25 million in civil penalties and restitution to settle a lawsuit brought by the state of Maryland. The suit alleged that tenants in thousands of rental units were charged illegal fees while failing to maintain the properties. In reaching the settlement, the company did not admit wrongdoing.
Kushner’s effort to fashion his own identity also has been tarnished by his controversial father.
Charles Kushner was made ambassador to France last year by Trump, but only after the president pardoned the New Jersey developer in 2020. The elder Kushner spent nearly two years in custody following a federal tax fraud investigation.
Not long after assuming his post, Kushner sparked a diplomatic clash with France, accusing the country of not doing enough to stem antisemitism in the country following the start of the Hamas-Israeli conflict.
Correspondent A.J. Perez, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News contributed to this report.
