Jared Corey Kushner (born January 10, 1981) is an American businessman, investor, government official and politician. Through his marriage to Ivanka Trump, he is the son-in-law of the 45th and 47th president of the United States Donald Trump. Kushner has served in both official and informal roles in the first and second Trump administrations.
Kushner worked as a real-estate investor in New York City, especially through the family business Kushner Companies. He took over the company in 2005 after his father, Charles Kushner, was convicted on criminal charges. Jared met Trump's daughter, Ivanka around 2005, and the couple married in 2009. He also became involved in the newspaper industry after purchasing The New York Observer in 2006. He was registered as a Democrat and donated to Democratic politicians until he registered as Independent in 2009 and eventually as Republican in 2018. He played a significant role in the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign, and was at one point seen as its de facto campaign manager. Around Trump's election, Kushner was frequently accused of conflicts of interest, profiting from policy proposals for which he personally advocated within the first Trump administration.
In 2017, Kushner was appointed as a senior advisor to Trump and as director of the Office of American Innovation, and held both positions until Trump left office in 2021. His appointment was followed by concerns of nepotism. He led the administration's effort to pass the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill signed into law in 2018. Kushner was the primary Trump administration participant for the Middle East Peace Process, authoring the Trump peace plan and facilitating the talks that led to the signing of the Abraham Accords and other normalization agreements between Israel and various Arab states in 2020. Kushner also played an influential role in the Trump administration's COVID-19 response, where he advised Trump that the media was exaggerating the threat of the disease. He was a leading broker in the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement.
After leaving the White House in 2021, Kushner founded Affinity Partners, a private equity firm that derives most of its funds from the Public Investment Fund, the Saudi government's sovereign wealth fund.
Kushner returned to an informal advisory role in the second Trump administration in 2025, serving along with Steve Witkoff as a key intermediary in diplomatic negotiations regarding the Gaza war and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In 2026, he was officially appointed as a special envoy for peace.
Early life and education Jared Corey Kushner was born on January 10, 1981, in Livingston, New Jersey, to Seryl (née Stadtmauer) and Charles Kushner. His father was friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton and attended several dinners with them. Morris Stadtmauer was Jared's maternal grandfather. His paternal grandparents, Reichel and Joseph Kushner, were Holocaust survivors who came to the U.S. in 1949 from Navahrudak, now in Belarus. Reichel, described as the family's matriarch, led efforts during the Holocaust to escape from the Navahrudak ghetto by digging a tunnel. Later, she became a member of the Bielski partisans.
Raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish family, Kushner graduated from the Frisch School, a Modern Orthodox yeshiva high school, in 1999 and enrolled at Harvard University in the same year. According to journalist Daniel Golden, Kushner's father made a donation of $2.5 million to the university in 1998, not long before Jared was admitted. At Harvard, Kushner was elected into the Fly Club, supported the campus Chabad house led by Hirschy Zarchi, and bought and sold real estate in Somerville, Massachusetts, as a vice president of Somerville Building Associates (a division of Kushner Companies), returning a profit of $20 million by its dissolution in 2005.Its other vice president was his maternal uncle, Richard Stadtmauer, then vice chairman of Kushner Companies Kushner graduated from Harvard with honors in 2003, with a B.A. degree in government.
Kushner then enrolled in the JD/MBA dual degree program at the New York University School of Law and New York University Stern School of Business, and graduated with both degrees in 2007. He interned at Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau's office, and with the New York law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
Business career Following his father's conviction in 2005 for 18 criminal charges including illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering and subsequent incarceration between March 4, 2005, and August 25, 2006, Kushner took a much bigger role in the family real estate business. He set about expanding the business and acquired almost $7 billion in property over the next ten years, much of it in New York City.Jared Kushner's trump card , Bloomberg Businessweek
Real estate Kushner was an active real estate investor during his college years, and increased the Kushner Companies' presence throughout the New York City real estate market.
Kushner Companies purchased the office building at 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007, for a then-record price of $1.8 billion, most of it borrowed. He assumed the role of CEO in 2008. Following the property crash that year, the cash flow generated by the property was insufficient to cover its debt service, and the Kushners were forced to sell a controlling stake in the retail footage to the Carlyle Group and Stanley CheraThe Real Deal: "$1.3B sale of 650 Madison hinges on dramatic increase in retail value, sources say" by Adam Pincus June 3, 2013. and bring in Vornado Realty Trust as a 50% equity partner in the ownership of the building. By that time, Kushner Companies had lost more than $90 million on its investment. He was the face of the deal, but his father Charles Kushner pushed him to do the deal.
In 2011, Kushner purchased a 130,000-square-foot office tower at 200 Lafayette Street in Manhattan for $50 million, selling it two years later for $150 million. In 2013, his company led a transaction to purchase the Jehovah's Witnesses headquarters in Brooklyn Heights for $375 million and invested $100 million into the site, transforming it into a sprawling office park, and signing online retailer Etsy to a 10-year lease. The same year, Kushner co-founded WiredScore, a global organization that provides a digital connectivity certification rating the quality and resilience of digital infrastructure in buildings.
Throughout 2013 to 2014, Kushner and his company acquired more than 11,000 units throughout New York, New Jersey, and the Baltimore area. In August 2014, Kushner acquired a three-building apartment portfolio in Middle River, Maryland, for $38 million with Aion Partners, later selling the complex for $68 million. In May 2015, he acquired a 50.1% stake of the Times Square Building from Africa Israel Investments Ltd. for $295 million.
In 2014, Kushner, with his brother Joshua and Ryan Williams, co-founded Cadre (now RealCadre LLC), an online real-estate investment platform. His business partners included Goldman Sachs and billionaire George Soros, a top Democratic Party donor. In early 2015, Soros Fund Management financed the startup with a $250 million credit line. Kushner did not identify these business relationships in his January 2017 government financial-disclosure form. He did, however, disclose his ownership of BFPS Ventures, the company that housed his stake in Cadre. In 2019, a property management company owned by Kushner was sued alleging that the company charged tenants illegal fees and failed to maintain over 9,000 properties in Maryland; the company settled and paid a $3.25 million civil penalty and restitution in 2022. In 2020, his ownership stake in Cadre was estimated at $25–50 million.
Newspaper publishing
In 2006, Kushner purchased The New York Observer, a weekly New York City newspaper, for $10 million,Seelye, Katharine Q. (July 31, 2006). "Developer's Son Acquires The New York Observer" . The New York Times. Retrieved January 8, 2008. outcompeting a bid by Trifecta Enterprises, a group headed by Robert De Niro. To make the bid, Kushner used money he says he earned during his college years by closing deals on residential buildings he purchased in Somerville, Massachusetts,Gell, Aaron, "Jared Kushner Was My Boss ", Gen, June 18, 2019 with family members providing the backing for his investments. The buildings, which he purchased for $8.3 million in 2000, sold four years later for $13 million.
After purchasing the Observer, Kushner published it in tabloid format.Teodorczuk, Tom (November 9, 2008). "An accidental proprietor" . The Guardian (London). Retrieved October 21, 2011. Since then, he has been credited with increasing the Observers online presence and expanding the Observer Media Group. With no substantial experience in journalism, Kushner could not establish a good relationship with the newspaper's veteran editor-in-chief, Peter W. Kaplan. "This guy doesn't know what he doesn't know", Kaplan remarked about Kushner, to colleagues, at the time. As a result of his differences with Kushner, Kaplan quit his position. Kaplan was followed by a series of short-lived successors until Kushner hired Elizabeth Spiers in 2011. It has been alleged that Kushner used the Observer as propaganda against rivals in real estate. Spiers left the newspaper in 2012. In January 2013, Kushner hired a new editor-in-chief, Ken Kurson. Kurson had been a consultant to Republican political candidates in New Jersey.
According to Vanity Fair, under Kushner, the "Observer has lost virtually all of its cultural currency among New York's elite, but the paper is now profitable and reporting traffic growth ... [it] boasts 6 million unique visitors per month, up from 1.3 million in January 2013".Ellison, Sarah (July 7, 2016). "Exclusive: How Jared Kushner became Donald Trump's Mini-Me" , Vanity Fair. In April 2016, the New York Observer became one of only a handful of newspapers to officially endorse United States presidential candidate Donald Trump in the Republican primary, but the paper ended the campaign period by choosing not to back any presidential candidate at all.
Kushner stepped down from his newspaper role in January 2017 to pursue a role in President Donald Trump's administration. He was replaced by his brother-in-law, Joseph Meyer.
Politics Political background Jared Kushner had been a lifelong Democrat prior to his father-in-law Donald Trump entering politics. He had donated over $10,000 to Democratic campaigns starting at the age of 11. In 2008, he donated to the campaign for Hillary Clinton and his newspaper the New York Observer endorsed Barack Obama over John McCain in the 2008 United States presidential election. After expressing disappointment with Obama, however, he registered as an independent in 2009 and endorsed Republican U.S. presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 via the New York Observer. In 2014 he continued to donate to Democratic groups, but joined his father-in-law Donald Trump's nascent US presidential campaign in the field of the Republican candidates in 2015. Kushner had no prior involvement in campaign politics or in government before Trump's campaign.
Presidential campaign