Jared Kushner

Based on Wikipedia: Jared Kushner

The Man Behind the Curtain

In the strange theater of American power, few figures have navigated between worlds quite like Jared Kushner. A real estate scion who became a presidential advisor. A lifelong Democrat who registered Republican. A man with no government experience who found himself negotiating Middle East peace deals and managing pandemic responses. His story reads like a modern fable about the porousness of American institutions—how money, marriage, and timing can propel someone from Manhattan boardrooms to the West Wing.

But let's start at the beginning.

A Family Forged by History

Jared Corey Kushner was born on January 10, 1981, in Livingston, New Jersey. His family's American story, like so many others, began with survival.

His paternal grandparents, Reichel and Joseph Kushner, were Holocaust survivors from Navahrudak, a town now located in Belarus. Reichel wasn't just a survivor—she was a leader. When the Nazis created a ghetto in Navahrudak, she helped organize one of the most remarkable escapes of the war: digging a tunnel to freedom. Later, she joined the Bielski partisans, a Jewish resistance group that operated in the forests of what is now Belarus and western Russia, ultimately saving more than 1,200 Jews from the Nazi genocide.

The Kushners arrived in America in 1949 and built a real estate empire from nothing. By the time Jared was born, his father Charles had transformed the family business into a major force in New Jersey real estate. Charles also cultivated political connections across party lines—he was friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton and attended dinners with them regularly.

Jared grew up in a Modern Orthodox Jewish household, attending the Frisch School, a yeshiva high school in Paramus, New Jersey. The family was wealthy, observant, and deeply connected to both religious tradition and secular ambition.

Harvard and the Question of Merit

In 1999, Jared Kushner enrolled at Harvard University. This admission would later become controversial when journalist Daniel Golden reported that Charles Kushner had donated $2.5 million to Harvard in 1998—not long before his son was admitted.

This raises uncomfortable questions that Americans have debated for generations. How much does legacy and wealth influence admissions at elite institutions? Is a $2.5 million donation a coincidence or a transaction? Harvard has never commented on the specifics, but the timing fed a narrative that would follow Kushner throughout his career: that he advanced through connections rather than merit.

Whatever the circumstances of his admission, Kushner was active at Harvard. He joined the Fly Club, one of the university's exclusive final clubs—social organizations that trace their history back to the 1800s and have counted among their members Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and numerous Supreme Court justices. He supported the campus Chabad house, a center for Jewish life run by Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi.

More remarkably, while still a student, Kushner began buying and selling real estate in Somerville, Massachusetts, operating as a vice president of Somerville Building Associates, a division of Kushner Companies. By the time he graduated in 2003 with honors and a degree in government, he had reportedly turned a $20 million profit on these deals.

He then pursued a joint JD/MBA program at New York University, graduating in 2007. During this time, he interned at the Manhattan District Attorney's office under Robert Morgenthau and at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, one of New York's most prestigious law firms.

The Father's Fall

In 2005, Jared Kushner's life took a sharp turn when his father Charles was convicted on 18 criminal charges.

The case was extraordinary in its sordidness. Charles Kushner had been a major Democratic donor, contributing to campaigns across New Jersey and nationally. When he learned that his own brother-in-law and a former employee were cooperating with federal investigators looking into his business practices, he hatched a revenge scheme.

Charles hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, recorded the encounter, and sent the tape to his own sister—the man's wife. The goal was to intimidate the witnesses. Instead, it added witness tampering to charges of illegal campaign contributions and tax evasion. The prosecutor who secured the conviction was Chris Christie, then the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, who would later have his own complicated relationship with the Kushner family.

Charles Kushner served 14 months in federal prison. The conviction was a public humiliation for a family that had cultivated an image of philanthropic success.

Jared, at just 24 years old, suddenly found himself thrust into a much larger role in the family business. He would spend the next decade trying to rebuild and expand the Kushner Companies empire.

666 Fifth Avenue: A Fateful Address

In 2007, Kushner made the deal that would define his real estate career—for better and worse.

Kushner Companies purchased the office building at 666 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan for $1.8 billion, the highest price ever paid for a single office building in the United States at that time. The address itself—with its Biblical associations to the "number of the beast"—would prove darkly prophetic.

The timing could not have been worse. Most of the purchase price was borrowed. Then came the 2008 financial crisis. Property values collapsed. The building's rental income couldn't cover its debt payments.

The Kushners were forced into a series of painful maneuvers. They sold a controlling stake in the building's retail space to the Carlyle Group and Stanley Chera. They brought in Vornado Realty Trust as a 50% equity partner. By the time the restructuring was complete, Kushner Companies had lost more than $90 million on the investment.

Jared was the face of the deal, but according to later reporting, it was his father Charles—still serving his prison sentence when the purchase was negotiated and closed—who had pushed him to do it. The building became an albatross, and for years afterward, the Kushners sought foreign investment to bail them out, a search that would later raise conflict-of-interest questions when Jared entered government.

Media Mogul

In 2006, at age 25, Kushner made an unexpected move: he bought The New York Observer, a salmon-pink weekly newspaper beloved by Manhattan's media and cultural elite, for $10 million. He outbid a group led by Robert De Niro.

The Observer had been founded in 1987 and had developed a reputation for sharp, witty coverage of New York real estate, media, and politics. Its writers had included Candace Bushnell, whose columns became the basis for "Sex and the City."

Kushner funded the purchase with money he said he'd earned from his Somerville real estate deals. But he had no experience in journalism, and it showed. His relationship with the paper's veteran editor-in-chief, Peter W. Kaplan, was rocky from the start.

"This guy doesn't know what he doesn't know."

That was Kaplan's assessment, shared with colleagues. He eventually quit. A series of short-lived editors followed until Kushner hired Elizabeth Spiers in 2011, who left the following year. In 2013, he brought in Ken Kurson, a consultant who had worked with Republican political candidates in New Jersey.

Under Kushner's ownership, the Observer transformed. It lost what Vanity Fair called "virtually all of its cultural currency among New York's elite." But it became profitable. Online traffic grew from 1.3 million unique visitors per month in January 2013 to 6 million by 2016.

There were allegations that Kushner used the paper as a weapon against rivals in real estate. Whether true or not, owning a media outlet gave him a platform—and experience in shaping narratives—that would prove useful in his next chapter.

Marriage and Political Transformation

Around 2005, Jared Kushner met Ivanka Trump. She was the daughter of real estate developer and celebrity businessman Donald Trump. Like Jared, she had grown up in the spotlight of New York wealth. Unlike Jared, she was not Jewish.

They married in 2009, but only after Ivanka converted to Judaism. The couple would go on to have three children and to keep an Orthodox Jewish household, observing the Sabbath and keeping kosher.

The marriage united two real estate dynasties. It also began Jared's political evolution.

For most of his life, Kushner had been a Democrat. He had donated to Democratic campaigns starting at age 11—more than $10,000 over the years. In 2008, he donated to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, and his newspaper endorsed Barack Obama over John McCain.

But something shifted. By 2009, he had re-registered as an Independent. His paper endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012. When his father-in-law announced a run for president in 2015 as a Republican, Jared joined the campaign. By 2018, he had registered as a Republican.

The Architect of Trump's Digital Campaign

Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign is now remembered as one of the most unconventional—and successful—in American history. Jared Kushner was at its center.

From the outset, Kushner oversaw Trump's digital strategy. He built a 100-person team dubbed "Project Alamo" and recruited talent from Silicon Valley. The operation was sophisticated: they tested more than 100,000 ad combinations per week, using data to optimize messaging in real time.

In the final months of the campaign, this digital operation raised more than $250 million in small-dollar donations. Andrew Bosworth, Facebook's top advertising executive during the 2016 cycle, called it "the single best digital ad campaign I've ever seen from any advertiser."

Kushner, along with Paul Manafort and Brad Parscale, also hired Cambridge Analytica, a data firm owned by Steve Bannon's financial backer Robert Mercer. Cambridge Analytica would later become notorious for its harvesting of Facebook user data without consent—a scandal that raised questions about the ethics of modern political campaigns.

Kushner wasn't just running digital operations. He served as a speechwriter. He was intimately involved in campaign strategy. He is believed to have been responsible for the selection of Mike Pence as Trump's running mate. He coordinated Trump's surprise visit to Mexico in August 2016, a trip designed to make the candidate look presidential.

When campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was fired in June 2016, it was partly on Kushner's recommendation. For a time, Kushner was seen as Trump's de facto campaign manager.

Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO who had worked on technology for Hillary Clinton's campaign, later expressed astonishment at what Kushner had accomplished.

"Best I can tell, he actually ran the campaign and did it with essentially no resources."

The numbers support this. Federal Election Commission filings show the Trump campaign spent $343 million—about 59 percent of what the Clinton campaign spent. They did more with less.

Controversy Over Anti-Semitism

In July 2016, the Trump campaign posted a tweet featuring an image of Hillary Clinton, a pile of money, and a six-pointed star—a shape associated with the Star of David. Critics called it anti-Semitic. The campaign deleted and replaced the image, but the controversy lingered.

Jared Kushner, an observant Jew whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, wrote an open letter in his own newspaper defending his father-in-law.

"In my opinion, accusations like 'racist' and 'anti-Semite' are being thrown around with a carelessness that risks rendering these words meaningless."

His estranged cousin Marc Kushner responded publicly on Facebook. His lesson from their grandparents' story, Marc wrote, was to renounce hate.

This family divide—and Jared's defense of a campaign that critics accused of tolerating or encouraging anti-Semitism—would remain a source of tension. It highlighted a question that many would ask throughout the Trump years: Was Jared a moderating influence from within, or was he providing cover for behavior he should have condemned?

Senior Advisor to the President

On January 9, 2017, Jared Kushner was named Senior Advisor to the President. He was 35 years old, with no government experience.

The appointment raised immediate concerns about nepotism. A federal anti-nepotism law, passed in 1967 after John F. Kennedy appointed his brother Robert as Attorney General, prohibits government officials from appointing relatives to agencies or departments they oversee. The Department of Justice concluded that this law did not apply to White House staff positions—a legal interpretation that allowed Kushner (and his wife Ivanka) to serve.

Kushner resigned as CEO of Kushner Companies and as publisher of the Observer. But questions about conflicts of interest would plague his tenure.

His portfolio of responsibilities was staggering. He was named director of the Office of American Innovation, tasked with bringing business solutions to government. He was assigned to manage relations with Mexico, China, and the Middle East. He was supposed to solve the opioid crisis, reform veterans' care, and overhaul criminal justice.

Critics mocked the breadth of his assignments. Supporters argued that he was being asked to cut through bureaucracy and bring fresh thinking. The truth, as it often is with Kushner, was somewhere in the middle.

Security Clearance Troubles

One of the most persistent controversies of Kushner's White House tenure involved his security clearance.

Senior advisors typically receive top-secret clearances, which allow access to the nation's most sensitive intelligence. But Kushner's application hit snags. He had initially failed to disclose all required information, including that he owed $1 billion in loans. He had to revise his forms multiple times.

Career officials recommended against granting him a clearance. But in early 2018, President Trump ordered that Kushner be given top-secret clearance anyway, overruling the intelligence community's concerns.

The episode raised questions about whether Kushner's foreign business entanglements—including the ongoing search for investors to bail out 666 Fifth Avenue—made him vulnerable to foreign influence.

The Abraham Accords: A Genuine Achievement

Whatever controversies surrounded him, Jared Kushner can claim one significant diplomatic achievement: the Abraham Accords.

For decades, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been considered the central obstacle to broader peace in the Middle East. The conventional wisdom held that Arab states would never normalize relations with Israel until the Palestinian issue was resolved.

Kushner challenged this assumption. Working with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders in the Gulf states, he pursued a different approach: normalize relations first, worry about the Palestinians later.

In 2020, this strategy produced results. The United Arab Emirates agreed to normalize relations with Israel, followed by Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. These "Abraham Accords"—named for the patriarch shared by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—represented the most significant diplomatic breakthrough between Israel and Arab states since Jordan's peace treaty in 1994.

Critics noted that the Palestinians were sidelined, their concerns unaddressed. The deals came with American concessions—recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, removal of Sudan from the state sponsors of terrorism list—that had little to do with Israeli-Arab peace. And the most important Arab power, Saudi Arabia, did not join.

Nevertheless, the Abraham Accords were real. Flights now operate directly between Tel Aviv and Dubai. Business relationships have blossomed. For better or worse, Kushner helped reshape Middle Eastern diplomacy.

The First Step Act: Criminal Justice Reform

Kushner's other notable achievement was the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill signed into law in December 2018.

The legislation reduced mandatory minimum sentences for some drug offenses, expanded early-release programs, and aimed to reduce recidivism through education and job training programs. It was a rare bipartisan accomplishment in an era of bitter partisan division.

For Kushner, the issue was personal. His father had served time in federal prison. He had seen firsthand how the criminal justice system could affect a family.

Kushner worked to build an unlikely coalition, winning support from the Koch brothers on the right and the American Civil Liberties Union on the left. The bill passed the Senate 87-12.

Critics argued the reforms were modest, that they did too little to address systemic problems in American incarceration. But in a polarized Washington, getting anything done was an achievement.

COVID-19 and the Shadow Task Force

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, Kushner inserted himself into the response.

He assembled what was described as a "shadow task force" of volunteers from the private sector—consultants, investors, and business executives—to work alongside the official efforts led by Vice President Mike Pence. This parallel operation reportedly created confusion about who was in charge and what the priorities were.

According to reporting from Vanity Fair and other outlets, Kushner advised President Trump that the media was exaggerating the threat of the virus. He allegedly suggested that the administration let states—particularly blue states governed by Democrats—struggle on their own, believing that the political damage would fall on governors rather than the president.

The procurement of personal protective equipment became chaotic. States found themselves bidding against each other—and against the federal government—for masks and ventilators. A system Kushner's team developed to distribute supplies was criticized as opaque and ineffective.

The pandemic response would become one of the most controversial aspects of the Trump administration, contributing to Trump's defeat in the 2020 election. Kushner's role in shaping that response remains a subject of investigation and debate.

After the White House: Affinity Partners

When Donald Trump left office in January 2021, so did Jared Kushner. He and Ivanka moved to Miami, buying a plot of land on "Billionaire Bunker"—an exclusive island in Biscayne Bay.

Within months, Kushner launched Affinity Partners, a private equity firm. The firm quickly raised $3 billion, with the vast majority of funds—$2 billion—coming from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

This arrangement raised eyebrows. Kushner had cultivated a close relationship with Mohammed bin Salman during his White House tenure. He had backed the crown prince even after the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a killing that U.S. intelligence concluded Mohammed bin Salman had ordered.

Ethics experts questioned whether the Saudi investment was a reward for Kushner's support while in government. Members of the firm's advisory board reportedly raised concerns about the terms of the Saudi deal, which were unusually favorable to Affinity Partners.

Kushner has defended the arrangement, arguing that his expertise and relationships are valuable to investors. But the perception that he is cashing in on his government service—particularly his closeness to authoritarian leaders—has been difficult to shake.

Return to the Stage

In 2025, with Donald Trump returning to the White House for a second term, Jared Kushner has re-emerged as an informal advisor.

He has served alongside Steve Witkoff as a key intermediary in diplomatic negotiations, including discussions about the Israel-Hamas war and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine following Russia's invasion. Though he holds no official government position, his influence appears to remain significant.

His father Charles, whose criminal conviction once seemed like it might end the family's political connections, received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump in 2020. The family's rehabilitation is complete.

The Enigma Remains

What to make of Jared Kushner?

To his supporters, he is a skilled negotiator and pragmatic problem-solver who achieved genuine diplomatic breakthroughs. The Abraham Accords and the First Step Act are real accomplishments that have affected real lives.

To his critics, he is the embodiment of unearned privilege—a man who failed upward, whose admission to Harvard, whose business career, whose role in the White House, and whose post-government wealth all derived from family connections rather than personal merit. They see his closeness to authoritarian leaders like Mohammed bin Salman as morally compromising, his role in the COVID response as disqualifying.

The truth, perhaps, is that Kushner is a product of systems that reward connections and confidence. He navigated those systems skillfully. Whether the results have been good for the country is a question Americans will debate for years to come.

What is undeniable is that Jared Kushner, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, the son of a convicted felon, the son-in-law of a president, has been at the center of American power during some of its most turbulent years. His story is, in many ways, a story about America itself—about who gets access, who wields influence, and what we value in our leaders.