Josh Kushner seems to be surrounded by a certain silence, which is odd because the deal he recently closed is anything but quiet. The Los Angeles Lakers were reportedly being sold to Kushner and former Disney CEO Bob Iger for a record $12.5 billion on August 12. It’s the kind of number that puts an end to dinner party discussions. However, Kushner hardly touched on it in his own response, which he posted to X that same day. He was more thrilled about raising an additional $2 billion for his AI holding company. You can learn something about the man from that omission.
The 41-year-old Kushner, who is married to Karlie Kloss, has spent years living somewhat in the shadow of his older brother Jared, whose name is synonymous with Donald Trump’s White House. Josh went in a different direction. In 2010, he left Harvard Business School to found Thrive Capital, which currently oversees over $65 billion. His reputation was established through early wagers on Spotify and Instagram. His wealth, which Forbes currently estimates to be close to $17 billion, was amassed through later ventures on OpenAI and SpaceX.
The Lakers deal is intriguing for reasons other than its size. It’s the velocity. Barely a year after he and Todd Boehly purchased the team at a $10 billion valuation, Mark Walter was the subject of a federal investigation into his insurance companies. Sensing an opportunity, Kushner contacted Iger, his partner in a previous, unrelated bid for a Las Vegas expansion franchise. Within 72 hours, the two reached an agreement, averting a potentially disastrous bidding war. It’s the kind of move that appears clear in retrospect but is practically unfeasible at the time.
Beneath the business drama, a family drama is also taking place. According to reports, the Buss family, which has owned the Lakers since Jerry Buss paid $16 million for the team in 1979, is divided over whether to sell its remaining 17.8 percent stake. The team’s former governor, Jeanie Buss, is reportedly opposing the sale because she wants to keep her position while her siblings try to make money. The symbolism of a family dynasty reluctantly ceding control to a new class of financial buyers is difficult to ignore.
Some analysts believe that the purchase was motivated by something more calculated than championship banners. Lumida Wealth Management’s Ram Ahluwalia has publicly claimed that the agreement serves as a “powerful tax shield,” allowing Kushner to offset profits from his investments in SpaceX, OpenAI, and Stripe against franchise-related depreciation. It’s genuinely unclear if that’s the true motivation or just one practical byproduct, and it’s likely that both can be true simultaneously.
The ownership structure in the NBA appears to have changed. In 2025, the Celtics sold for $6.1 billion. At $10 billion, the Lakers momentarily broke that record. This deal breaks it once more, this time by a significant margin. Teams that were previously passed down silently between generations of the same family are now more frequently traded within a year or two and are valued more like tech startups than as civic organizations.
For the majority of the reporting surrounding this deal, Kushner declined to be interviewed, which is consistent with a man who has spent fifteen years quietly gaining influence. It’s unclear if he plans to manage the Lakers on a daily basis or just hold the asset while Iger takes care of the public relations duties. In any case, a venture capitalist that most fans were unaware of just a month ago now owns, at least partially, the league’s most legendary team.
