Forbes profiles Josh Kushner’s $17 billion fortune, linking his wealth accumulation to stakes in OpenAI, SpaceX, and the Lakers.
On August 12, reports emerged that the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers were being sold to former Disney CEO Bob Iger and venture capitalist Josh Kushner for a record $12.5 billion. Yet Kushner made little mention of the acquisition on his X account. Instead, the 41-year-old billionaire used the platform to celebrate a separate deal closing that same day: Thrive Holdings, a firm he launched in 2025 to acquire and AI-transform service companies, had secured $2 billion from investors including SoftBank at a $12.5 billion valuation.
“We feel extraordinarily fortunate to be building during a period of such profound innovation,” he wrote, with no mention of the Lakers, a championship team famous enough to survive the omission.
It has been a similarly high-profile summer for Kushner. Long recognized in Silicon Valley for Thrive Capital’s early investments in companies like Instagram and Spotify, as well as its recent stakes in OpenAI, he has spent the last two months shifting from a typically press-shy venture capitalist to a visible industry powerbroker. In early July, he attended the star-studded wedding of Taylor Swift and NFL star Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden alongside his wife, supermodel Karlie Kloss. Days later, he appeared at Allen & Co.’s invitation-only conference in Sun Valley, Idaho—frequently dubbed the “summer camp for billionaires”—where he was photographed with OpenAI president Greg Brockman.
Business developments have been equally rapid. In June, SpaceX’s public listing propelled Thrive’s stake in the aerospace company to a reported $10 billion. Just four days later, SpaceX announced a $60 billion acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor, which valued Thrive’s 7% holding at $4.2 billion. Meanwhile, in July, Kushner and Thrive navigated a controversial proposal to purchase a stake in the FIFA World Cup at a $20 billion valuation, though the initiative collapsed within three days.
The headlines continue to mount. Less than a week after the Lakers announcement, a lawyer for controlling owner Jeanie Buss denied that she had reached an agreement with her five siblings to sell their combined 17.8% stake in the franchise. That development could complicate Kushner and Iger’s $12.5 billion acquisition before it even clears regulatory hurdles.
One thing is certain: the younger Kushner brother’s wealth is expanding at a meteoric pace. Forbes currently estimates his net worth at $16.7 billion, nearly triple the $5.2 billion recorded a year ago, driven by Thrive’s rapidly growing asset base and the fresh valuation of Thrive Holdings. This figure excludes his prospective Lakers stake, which remains undetermined pending deal closure. Additionally, Kushner retains a minority stake in the Miami Heat valued at approximately $80 million, which he must divest prior to finalizing the Lakers purchase. A representative for Kushner declined to comment.
This places the younger Kushner nearly 17 times wealthier than his brother Jared, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and designated special peace envoy, whose fortune was primarily accumulated through the private equity firm Affinity Partners. It also renders him roughly three times as wealthy as the president himself. The familial divergence is stark: Josh is a lifelong Democrat, whereas Jared and their father, Charles Kushner—who was convicted in 2005 of tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions, and witness tampering before receiving a presidential pardon in 2020 and currently serves as U.S. Ambassador to France—remain deeply embedded in the administration’s inner circle.
This financial acceleration is fundamentally a Thrive Capital narrative. In an August investor letter obtained by Bloomberg, Kushner disclosed that the firm now manages over $65 billion in assets—a figure nearly triple the $23 billion recorded in December 2024 and $15 billion higher than its July regulatory filing. Within that same correspondence, he hinted at the possibility of selling a minority stake in the firm, comparable to the 3% position divested in 2021 and repurchased two years later, to existing founders alongside “a small number of new institutional partners.”
Founded in New York in 2010, Thrive launched with a $5 million initial fund backed by Joel Cutler, co-founder of General Catalyst. At 25, Kushner had just completed a year on Goldman Sachs’ private equity desk following his graduation from Harvard Business School. Since then, the firm has successfully closed ten flagship vehicles, most recently Thrive X, which wrapped up in March with over $10 billion in committed capital.
“Thrive has had one of the shortest trajectories from inception to top-tier status, reputation, deal flow and quality investments,” billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen told Forbes in 2017.
Over the past sixteen years, Kushner has secured stakes in numerous high-value startups. His breakthrough occurred in 2012 when Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion mere days after Thrive invested at a $500 million valuation. Numerous portfolio companies have since exited via IPO or acquisition, including Cursor, Instacart, Nubank, Robinhood, Spotify, and SpaceX. Several others remain privately held at staggering valuations: Anduril ($61 billion as of May), Databricks ($190 billion in August), and Stripe ($159 billion in February). Then there is OpenAI, which carried an $852 billion valuation in March and is slated for a public offering within the next twelve months.
“We have long believed that a small number of exceptional companies create a disproportionate amount of value and can compound their advantages for far longer than the market expects,” Kushner wrote in the investor letter.
Forbes initially valued Kushner’s net worth at $500 million in 2016, when his Thrive holdings were worth approximately $240 million. By 2021, he liquidated a 3% stake to Goldman Sachs-affiliated Petershill Partners at a $3.6 billion firm valuation, pushing his personal fortune to $2 billion based on an estimated 66% ownership. Thrive subsequently bought back that stake in December 2022, reselling it a month later to a buyer group comprising Iger, KKR co-founder Henry Kravis, Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, French telecommunications executive Xavier Niel, and Brazilian magnate Jorge Paulo Lemann for $175 million. The transaction valued Thrive at $5.3 billion and lifted Kushner’s net worth to $3.6 billion.
As Thrive’s asset base expanded, so too did Kushner’s personal wealth. A significant portion stems from portfolio appreciation. In his investor correspondence, he noted that “more than half” of the firm’s $65 billion in assets was “driven by investment gains.” He further highlighted that Thrive’s funds have delivered an average annual return of 33% after fees, substantially outpacing the S&P 500’s approximate 14% annual gain and the Nasdaq’s 17% over a comparable timeframe.
These returns are translating into tangible cash flows for both Kushner and his limited partners. “Over the last 12 months, we have generated more than $1 billion of liquidity and believe there may be an opportunity for billions of dollars in additional liquidity in the coming quarters,” he wrote.
A substantial portion of that liquidity may originate from OpenAI’s anticipated IPO, which could push the company’s valuation beyond $1 trillion. Thrive has also increasingly participated in public markets, disclosing a $215 million Amazon position as of late June that has appreciated to $230 million. In March, the firm deployed $100 million into e-commerce platform Shopify, a holding now valued at $130 million. Thrive continues to hold a 0.14% stake in SpaceX, valued at $2.6 billion. Its earliest public holding remains Oscar Health, the health insurance startup Kushner co-founded in 2012. Following a 114% stock surge this year driven by membership expansion and profitability, that position is now worth $200 million.
Kushner’s personal capital commitments to Thrive’s funds have similarly expanded, rising from an estimated $186 million in 2024 to $500 million by late June. Beyond his direct investments, he earns a percentage of the 2% to 2.5% annual management fees levied on investors, alongside a share of the carried interest generated by the firm’s portfolio performance.
Given this influx of potential capital, Kushner may soon face substantial tax liabilities on realized capital gains. Acquiring a sports franchise, particularly one of the Lakers’ caliber, could offer meaningful tax advantages, contingent upon how he and Iger structure the transaction. If they satisfy specific criteria—including assuming an active operational role and meeting other structural requirements—Kushner and Iger could allocate up to 90% of the $12.5 billion purchase price toward qualifying expenses, including media rights, player salaries, and team operations.