What’s New
Jared Kushner, President-elect Donald Trump‘s son-in-law, said during a podcast appearance Friday that the $1.5 billion in capital raised from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for his investment firm, Affinity Partners, came “irrespective” of Trump’s election victory.
Newsweek has filled out a contact request form with Affinity Partners for comment on Sunday.
Why It Matters
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka Trump, served as a senior adviser to Trump during his first term, focusing on Middle East policy.
Some Democrats have criticized Kushner over Middle Eastern investments in his firm Affinity Partners, including a $2 billion deal with a Saudi fund led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman made six months after Kushner left the White House in 2021.
Other accusations include that Kushner has lobbied on behalf of the prince after the Saudi Public Investment Fund paid $87 million to Affinity Partners since June 2021. The crown prince and Trump shared close personal and political ties.
Kushner is not expected to take a similar role in the incoming administration, and said during a Friday episode of Invest Like The Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy he and his firm “preemptively tried to avoid any conflict so we don’t have to raise capital for the next four years.”
What To Know
In the Friday episode, Kushner said the Miami-based investment firm approached investors ahead of the close of the funds, saying, “So I spoke to my investors earlier this year in February, and said something that we should talk about if you’re thinking of re-upping in the fund, let’s do it sooner as opposed to later.”
They agreed, and Kushner affirmed that “over the last year we closed a billion and a half extra capital and extended the investment period of the fund to 2029.”
Kushner added: “We closed all that before the election. They wanted to do that irrespective of what the outcome was.”
“And I made very clear to them that in the event that Trump was elected that they should not expect anything from me for that. This is based on the initial investments they made in 2021 when at the time Trump didn’t look political at all,” he said.
Trump won the 2024 presidential election and is set to take office in January.
Earlier in the episode, Kushner confirmed “my three biggest LPs [limited partners/investors] are PIF from Saudi Arabia, Lunate from Abu Dhabi, and QAI from Qatar.” PIF is Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, while QAI refers to Qatar Investment Authority, both the respective country’s sovereign wealth funds.
As a senior adviser to Trump, Kushner was involved in policy in the Middle East, notably he helped broker the Abraham Accords, which led Bahrain and the UAE to recognize Israel’s sovereignty and establish diplomatic relations.
In late-October, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden and Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, both Democrats, wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to appoint a special counsel to investigate Kushner’s relations with Saudi Arabia.
They argued that Kushner acted as a “shadow diplomat and political adviser” to the crown prince and was acting as an “unregistered foreign agent.”
“There is substantial reason to believe that the Saudi government’s decision to engage Affinity for investment advice is a fig leaf for funneling money directly to Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump,” the letter adds.
During Friday’s podcast episode, Kushner addressed the letter, saying, “They haven’t acknowledged that we’ve done anything wrong in our business. My sense there is that they are not serious efforts.” He later added that “their lack of understanding of private equity was silly,” and reaffirmed “we’re running a very legitimate business. We’re SEC regulated.”
While it is expected that Kushner is going to take a back seat in this second administration, his father is not. Trump pardoned Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, in 2020, and in November nominated him to serve as U.S. ambassador to France.
In the announcement, Trump said Charles Kushner is “a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, and dealmaker.” Charles Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison in 2005 after he pled guilty to 18 counts, including tax evasion and witness tampering.
What People Are Saying
Wyden and Raskin wrote in their October letter: “While on the Saudi government’s payroll, Mr. Kushner is simultaneously serving as a political consultant to former President Trump and acting as a shadow diplomat and political adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and other foreign principals.”
Representative Robert Garcia, a California Democrat, wrote in a September X, former Twitter, post: “Jared Kushner got $2 billion from Saudi Arabia just months after leaving the White House. New reports show that he pocketed $115 million in fees – but his ‘investment fund’ has delivered no profits. We must investigate now.”
David Marcus, CEO of Lightspark, a cryptocurrency startup, wrote on X Friday: “Must listen. @jaredkushner is both a deep thinker and an execution machine, which is such a rare combination. Such a great episode.”
What Happens Next
Trump is set to take office in January amid a shifting political landscape in the Middle East. In recent months, the region has undergone significant changes, particularly in Gaza, Israel, Lebanon, Iran, and, most recently, Syria, where longtime leader Bashar al-Assad was ousted earlier this month.
Trump has named Massad Boulos, a Lebanon-born billionaire and the father-in-law of his youngest daughter Tiffany, as his senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
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