Who is incoming Lakers owner Joshua Kushner?

On Wednesday, Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, shocked the sports world by partnering with former Disney CEO Bob Iger to agree to purchase the Los Angeles Lakers. The deal values the franchise at $12.5 billion, according to a source with knowledge of the sale who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The agreement launched Kushner into headlines for the second time in just a few weeks, after Kushner and his investment fund, Thrive Eternal, were at the center of FIFA’s controversial, now-scrapped plan to sell stakes in its major events, including the World Cup, to private investors.

But Kushner’s sports investments date back years and have become a growing part of his venture capital approach. Here’s what you need to know about him.

Who is Joshua Kushner?

Kushner, 41, is a billionaire who made his fortune in venture capital.

He is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump. Jared Kushner was a senior advisor to Trump during the President’s first term and is a special envoy in the current Trump administration, negotiating on the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine. He was also the White House’s key contact for the 2026 World Cup bid and played a significant role in securing the final for MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

Everything we know about the Lakers being sold again

Dan Woike

{“@context”:”https://schema.org”,”@type”:”VideoObject”,”@id”:”https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/video/88cbUtgKURO09HI/”,”url”:”https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/video/88cbUtgKURO09HI/”,”name”:”Everything we know about the Lakers being sold again”,”description”:”Dan Woike gives us exclusive insight into how and why the Lakers were sold for the second time in two years, including why Mark Walter’s group agreed to sell the team to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner. “,”uploadDate”:”2026-08-12T19:43:12.466Z”,”duration”:”PT1M48S”,”thumbnailUrl”:”https://cdn-media.theathletic.com/video-stream/auto-thumbnail/88cbUtgKURO09HI/e7DyCqxhbG1x.0000000.jpg”,”contentUrl”:”https://video.nyt.com/athletic/streams/88cbUtgKURO09HI/e7DyCqxhbG1x/e7DyCqxhbG1x.m3u8″,”transcript”:”The Lakers have been sold. No, this is not a video from last summer. This is a video from today, this summer, 2026, for the second time in 15 months, 14 months now, the team has changed hands. They moved from the Buss family to Mark Walter and now thanks to a $12.5 billion agreement. They will be moving from Mark Walter and the Guggenheim Group to Bob Iger and to Josh Kushner. This is very surprising news. People around the Lakers, people around the NBA did not see this coming. This deal apparently came together very quickly over the course of the weekend. Obviously there are investigations going on into Mark Walter’s finances. I am told at least, you know, at least from people close to the Walter Group that this had nothing to do with it, that this was an opportunity just to make some extra money, that it was a smart investment. Obviously a $2.5 billion increase in evaluation in 12 months is pretty remarkable. But obviously a lot of questions still to be asked, a lot of questions still to be answered. I think right now the major takeaway is that the Lakers are in flux, again, that this is an organization that had the stability of family ownership, which is not a word we would associate with the family ownership. It had certainly its share of drama with the Buss family, but at least we’re under the same roof. For more than 40 years and now in 18 months have changed hands twice. Obviously, the deal still needs to be approved by the NBA’s Board of Governors. A lot has to happen in terms of due diligence and finance because of the rapid nature that things are happening, but we’re going to tackle it all at the athletic, what it means for basketball, what it means for business, what it means for news and everything that’s going on with the investigations and different things like that. It’s never quiet around the Lakers and it wasn’t quiet this morning.”,”ineligibleRegion”:[“BI”,”BY”,”CD”,”CF”,”CU”,”IQ”,”IR”,”KP”,”LB”,”LY”,”ML”,”NI”,”RU”,”SD”,”SO”,”SS”,”SY”,”UA”,”VE”,”YE”,”ZW”],”publisher”:{“@type”:”NewsMediaOrganization”,”@id”:”https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/#publisher”,”name”:”The Athletic”,”url”:”https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/”,”foundingDate”:”2016-01-25″,”logo”:{“@type”:”ImageObject”,”@id”:”https://theathletic.com/app/themes/athletic/assets/img/the-athletic-wordmark-black.png”,”url”:”https://theathletic.com/app/themes/athletic/assets/img/the-athletic-wordmark-black.png”,”contentUrl”:”https://theathletic.com/app/themes/athletic/assets/img/the-athletic-wordmark-black.png”,”creditText”:”The Athletic”,”height”:”60″,”width”:”435″},”publishingPrinciples”:”https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/edit-guidelines/”,”sameAs”:”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Athletic”},”author”:[{“@type”:”Person”,”name”:”Dan Woike”}]}

The Kushners’ father, Charles, is a billionaire real estate developer who currently serves as Trump’s ambassador to France and Monaco. He was pardoned by Trump in 2020 after spending more than a year in prison after pleading guilty to charges of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions. Charles once supported the Democratic Party, but he has since made significant donations to Trump’s presidential campaigns.

Joshua has a history of donations to Democratic candidates and causes. In 2012, he co-founded Oscar Health, a health insurance company created after the passage of former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. He and his wife, supermodel Karlie Kloss, have donated to Obama’s foundation, and Kloss has publicly supported the past three Democratic presidential candidates. The couple was also spotted outside Taylor Swift’s wedding to Travis Kelce in July.

The New York Times previously reported Joshua is close to his brother, but unlike Jared, is less public with his political affiliations, though he was heard in 2018 saying “we survived Donald Trump” when listing the year’s challenges.

Kushner became a minority shareholder in the Memphis Grizzlies in 2019, then sold his stake to buy a minority stake in the Miami Heat in 2024. Kloss bought a limited partnership stake in the New York Liberty in May.

What is Thrive Eternal?

Thrive Eternal is a holding company of Kushner’s venture capital firm Thrive Capital. Kushner started Thrive Capital in 2009 with initial backing from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, and made a name for himself by investing in companies such as OpenAI, Instagram and Spotify. In 2022, Iger bought a minority stake in Thrive Capital, and he became an advisor in 2026.

a.showcase-link-container {
display: flex;
gap: 20px;
flex-direction: column;
align-items: center;
padding: 20px 0px;
border-top: 1px solid rgba(150, 150, 147, 0.4);
border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(150, 150, 147, 0.4);
text-decoration: none;
color: #121212;
cursor: pointer;

.showcase-link {
font-family: nyt-franklin;
font-size: 14px;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 700;
line-height: 13.8px;
letter-spacing: 1.1px;
text-transform: uppercase;
}

.showcase-link-image {
border-radius: 8px;
object-fit: cover;
width: 200px;
height: 150px;
margin: 0px;
@media (max-width: 600px) {
width: 120px;
height: 120px;
}
}

.showcase-link-inner-content {
display: flex;
flex-direction: row;
gap: 16px;
width: 100%;
}

.showcase-link-text-content {
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
gap: 20px;
justify-content: center;
@media (max-width: 600px) {
gap: 8px;
}
}

.showcase-link-title {
font-family: nyt-cheltenham;
font-size: 24px;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 500;
line-height: 120%; /* 24px */
letter-spacing: 0.01px;
text-overflow: ellipsis;
overflow: hidden;
display: -webkit-box;
-webkit-box-orient: vertical;
-webkit-line-clamp: 3;
@media (max-width: 600px) {
font-size: 16px;
}
}

.showcase-link-excerpt {
font-family: nyt-imperial;
font-size: 16px;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: 400;
line-height: 139%; /* 19.46px */
color: #323232;
text-overflow: ellipsis;
overflow: hidden;
display: -webkit-box;
-webkit-box-orient: vertical;
-webkit-line-clamp: 4;
@media (max-width: 600px) {
font-size: 12px;
line-height: 121%;
}
}
}

.showcase-link-inputs {
.showcase-link-input {
width: 100%;
font-size: 1rem;
background-color: white;
margin-bottom: 12px;
}

.showcase-link-indent {
margin-left: 25px;
}

option {
width: 100%;
}
}

@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
.native-mobile a.showcase-link-container {
background-color: #121212;
color: #f0f0ee;
.showcase-link-excerpt {
color: #c4c4c0;
}
}
}

// Remove all onclicks on imgs for apps to prevent image zoom on click
document.querySelectorAll(‘.showcase-link-image’).forEach((img) => img.removeAttribute(‘onclick’));

What You Should Read Next

Lakers to be sold to Bob Iger, Joshua Kushner 1 year after Mark Walter bought team

A little more than a year after agreeing to purchase a majority share of the Lakers, Mark Walter is selling the team.

Kushner’s firm created Thrive Eternal in April. In a post on X, Kushner said the new company would focus specifically on “assets with qualities that cannot be replicated by technology,” such as “iconic franchises and cultural institutions rooted in tradition, identity, and shared experience.”

In that same post, Kushner announced Thrive Eternal’s expected purchase of a minority stake in the San Francisco Giants. In June, the Los Angeles Times and other outlets reported that Kushner and Iger were discussing making a bid for the NBA’s Las Vegas expansion team.

In July, FIFA announced Thrive Eternal was involved in president Gianni Infantino’s plan to secure private investment in a new company to run its top events. The plan would have sold a fifth of the company to Thrive Eternal for $4.2 billion, but soccer’s global governing body and Infantino abandoned the deal days after its announcement amid significant backlash.

Now, Kushner, Iger and Thrive Eternal are poised to enter team ownership with the Lakers in a deal that still needs to be finalized and approved by the NBA’s board of governors.

Who is incoming Lakers owner Joshua Kushner?

Who is Joshua Kushner?

What is Thrive Eternal?

Analyse