Joshua Kushner agrees to buy Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5 billion with Bob Iger

Sale requires NBA approval; Kushner must sell Miami Heat stake

Joshua Kushner, the founder of the venture-capital firm Thrive Capital, and Bob Iger, the former Walt Disney Co. chief executive, have agreed to acquire the Los Angeles Lakers from Mark Walter for $12.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal would transfer the franchise 14 months after Walter purchased it at a $10 billion valuation; a person close to Kushner told the Journal that Walter accepted the offer within 72 hours of being asked, as if Kushner “made an offer on a house.”

Walter’s decision came as he faces a federal investigation at Guggenheim Partners into private credit lending, along with a liquidity crunch at the firm, the Journal reported. The sale still requires approval from the NBA.

Kushner and Iger, who is an adviser to Thrive Capital, had initially pursued an NBA expansion franchise in Las Vegas, according to the Journal. As the price for that franchise climbed, the pair pivoted to existing teams and ended up approaching Walter directly.

Joshua Kushner, 41, is the younger brother of Jared Kushner — husband of Ivanka Trump and a developer of vacation real estate — and is married to model Karlie Kloss, a former Victoria’s Secret model. The Journal described Joshua Kushner as a Modern Orthodox Jew who keeps kosher and observes the Sabbath, and reported that he and Kloss split time between New York and Miami, where they share a 15,000-square-foot waterfront mansion with their three children. According to people who know them, the brothers remain close despite political differences; the Journal said Joshua and Kloss are “avowedly liberal.”

Joel Klein, a former Justice Department official and New York City schools chancellor who later worked at Oscar Health, a startup Kushner founded, told the Journal that the younger Kushner is “a rare bird” whose tendency to listen rather than seek attention sets him apart. “He’s got this humility shtick,” said Andrew Golden, the former investment director of Princeton University’s endowment and an early Thrive backer. “Eighty percent of it is actually genuine.”

Kushner founded Thrive Capital in 2009 with $5 million raised from friends and family, basing the firm in the Kushner-owned Puck Building in Manhattan, the Journal reported. The firm gained early prominence through its participation in Instagram’s Series B funding round in 2012; a few days later, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion. That same year, Thrive joined a $50 million fundraising round for Reddit, in which OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman was also an investor.

Thrive Capital is now one of OpenAI’s largest shareholders, after SoftBank, the Journal reported. Thrive first invested in OpenAI in 2023 at a $29 billion valuation; OpenAI is now valued at $852 billion and is widely expected to go public in the next year. Altman posted on X in 2024 that “i have been fortunate to work with many great investors; there is none I’d recommend more highly than josh,” after Kushner fought to restore him following a boardroom coup at OpenAI.

The firm’s other backers include Peter Thiel, a Thrive investor; actor-turned-investor Ashton Kutcher; Indian oil magnate Mukesh Ambani; KKR & Co. co-founder Henry Kravis; former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein; and Jon Winkelried, the CEO of TPG Capital. Kravis, Ambani, and Iger jointly acquired a stake in Thrive in 2023 at a $5.3 billion valuation, the Journal reported. Thrive raised a $10 billion fund earlier this year.

Kushner has said his core investment thesis also prizes “iconic franchises” he believes will be immune from technological disruption, according to the Journal. He already holds minority stakes in the Memphis Grizzlies and the Miami Heat; he will have to sell the Heat stake to take ownership of the Lakers.

Thrive Capital also bought a stake in the San Francisco Giants earlier this year and was set to invest billions in a new commercial venture run by FIFA before the plan collapsed after stirring intense backlash in the soccer world, the Journal reported. Those familiar with Kushner described him as unlikely to involve himself in basketball decisions, and Golden told the Journal, “That’s just not his way.”

“It’s interesting for someone who’s so private to buy the freaking Lakers,” Elie Jacobs, a media and communications adviser, told the Journal.

Joshua Kushner’s grandparents, Rae and Joseph Kushner, were Holocaust survivors. Rae Kushner escaped a Jewish ghetto in what was then the Polish city of Novogrudok by clawing her way through a tunnel, while Joseph survived in nearby woods for nearly three years, according to the Journal. The couple settled in Elizabeth, N.J., where they joined a close-knit group of Holocaust survivors — known as The Builders — who constructed houses and then entire neighborhoods in the post-war suburbs. The Wilf family, also part of The Builders, now owns the Minnesota Vikings.

The brothers’ father, Charles Kushner, was sentenced to prison in Alabama in 2005 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and making illegal campaign contributions, the Journal reported. The investigation also revealed that Charles Kushner had arranged for his brother-in-law to be set up with a prostitute in an attempt to create blackmail material to derail the state’s investigation. President Trump pardoned Charles Kushner in 2020 and last year named him ambassador to France.

Beyond its OpenAI position, Thrive Capital holds investments in Stripe, SpaceX, and other technology companies, the Journal reported. A separate arm, Thrive Holdings, is rolling up accounting firms and other traditional businesses and infusing them with AI; it raised $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation this month. The Thrive portfolio also includes Thrive Eternal, an arm devoted to what the Journal described as “supposedly AI-proof” properties such as the Lakers.