How Jared Kushner’s Investments In The Middle East Made Him A Billionaire

Forbes

Thanks to some good investments, new funding from his Middle Eastern backers and higher home values in south Florida, Ivanka Trump’s husband has joined his brother and his father-in-law in the three-comma-club.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/monicahunter-hart/2025/09/16/how-jared-kushners-bold-bets-in-the-middle-east-made-him-a-billionaire/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, how Jared Kushner's bold bets in the Middle East made him a billionaire.

00:08Jared Kushner's biggest private equity win so far is an Israeli business he tried to buy into

00:14more than a decade ago. In 2014, Kushner was 33 years old and the CEO of Kushner Companies,

00:21the New York City-based real estate company co-founded by his father and grandfather.

00:25Looking for new investments, he targeted the Israeli insurance and financial services firm

00:31Phoenix. Kushner entered into a tentative deal to buy a 47% stake in the company,

00:37enabled in part by a loan from the seller. All looked promising for a time,

00:42but regulatory hurdles soon proved too difficult and the bid fell through.

00:47Ten years later, he got a second chance. Through Affinity Partners, the private equity firm he

00:53founded in early 2021, he spent roughly a quarter of a billion dollars buying a nearly 10% stake in

01:00Phoenix since July 2024. One of Affinity's biggest bets to date, Kushner boasts that it's also the

01:07firm's quote, best investment. Kushner, now 44 years old, says he's already made an over nine times return.

01:16Thanks in part to bets like this, as well as his knack for raising funds from high-profile

01:23Middle Eastern backers, Kushner is now a billionaire. Forbes estimates his fortune at just over $1 billion,

01:30up from at least $900 million a year ago. He joins the billionaire ranks alongside his brother Josh,

01:37whose net worth is $5.2 billion, and his father-in-law, President Donald Trump,

01:42whose net worth is $7.3 billion. But rather than following Josh, whose venture capital firm is

01:49mainly focused on tech investments, or Trump, who these days makes most of his money from crypto bets,

01:55Kushner has largely gone his own way. Kushner left his family's real estate business in 2017

02:01to join the White House as a senior advisor for Trump's first term. That role led him to the Middle

02:07East, where he eventually helped negotiate the Abraham Accords, a set of normalization agreements

02:13between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and others. In January 2021, the same month Trump

02:20left the White House, Kushner set up Affinity Partners in the Miami suburb of sunny Isles Beach.

02:27Altogether, he's raised $4.6 billion, including $1.5 billion last year from two of his earlier backers,

02:34the Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund, and Abu Dhabi-based Lunate, part of Emirati Royal Sheikh Tannoun's

02:41Royal Group. Kushner owns 100% of Affinity, which Forbes estimates is currently worth $215 million,

02:49up from $170 million in October. That makes it Kushner's second biggest asset after his 20% stake in

02:56his family's Kushner companies, worth $560 million, which is down from $580 million.

03:02Another good bet, buying a home on Florida's Indian Creek Island, the so-called billionaire

03:08bunker enclave, where both Jeff Bezos and the Emir of Qatar also own estates.

03:14Kushner bought his home for $32 million in 2020. That house, which he shares with his wife Ivanka

03:20Trump, is now worth at least $105 million before accounting for its mortgage, a nearly threefold

03:26jump in value. The rest of Kushner's wealth lies in cash, artwork, and other personal investments,

03:33though unlike his brothers-in-law and the president, seemingly no crypto. It's a wide-ranging portfolio,

03:40but these days he's laser-focused on Affinity. Private equity is a new realm for Kushner,

03:46whose prior expertise lay mostly in real estate. Perhaps wisely, he started slowly, spending less

03:52than $500 million through 2023. But he's beginning to ramp up heavily. Affinity had publicly deployed

03:59over $2 billion as of April, and is on track to invest at least $1 billion this year alone.

04:05The firm manages $4.8 billion in assets, according to its latest financial disclosure,

04:10filed in March. It now counts about 25 investments, including 22 portfolio companies,

04:16in at least eight countries across industries from fitness tech to car leasing. The firm's also getting

04:23in on the artificial intelligence boom. It recently backed AI infrastructure firm Universal AI,

04:29which raised $10 million from a roster of high-profile investors, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt

04:35and prolific Israeli-born venture capitalist Elad Gill. And last Wednesday, Kushner and Gill launched a

04:42new AI startup based in San Francisco, BrainCo, which has already raised $30 million from Affinity,

04:49Gill, and others, including Coinbase's Brian Armstrong, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, and Stripe's Patrick

04:56Collison. Most of Affinity's investors came through connections Kushner made while serving in the White

05:02House. Affinity's backers pay about $60 million per year in fees. For full coverage, check out Monica

05:10Hunter Hart and Giacomo Tagni's piece on Forbes.com. This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.

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