Josh Kushner’s Billion-Dollar Lakers Deal Amid a Rapid Wealth Surge

On August 12, news broke that the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers were being sold to former Disney chief Bob Iger and venture capitalist Josh Kushner for a reported $12.5 billion—the highest price ever paid for a sports franchise. The deal was announced while Kushner was also celebrating the closing of a $2 billion financing round for Thrive Holdings, the investment vehicle he created in 2025.

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Thrive Holdings, founded in 2025 to acquire and modernize services firms with artificial-intelligence tools, raised $2 billion at a $12.5 billion valuation in the same month as the Lakers announcement. Over the past 16 years, Kushner’s venture firm Thrive Capital has backed a string of high-profile companies—including Instagram, Spotify, SpaceX, and OpenAI—many of which have gone public or been acquired at multibillion-dollar valuations. Recent high-profile appearances, such as at a celebrity wedding in early July and a billionaire conference in Sun Valley, underscore his elevated public profile.

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• Net-worth estimate: Forbes values Kushner at $16.7 billion, up from $5.2 billion a year earlier. The estimate excludes the yet-unclosed Lakers stake.

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• Thrive assets: An August investor letter disclosed $65 billion in assets under management, nearly triple the $23 billion reported in December 2024.

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• Investment performance: Kushner claims Thrive’s funds have returned an average 33 % per year after fees, compared with the S&P 500’s roughly 14 % and the Nasdaq’s 17 % over the same period.

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• Liquidity generation: The same letter notes more than $1 billion of liquidity generated in the past 12 months, with potential “billions of dollars” of additional liquidity expected in coming quarters, largely tied to OpenAI’s anticipated IPO valued at over $1 trillion.

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• Key holdings: Thrive owns a 0.14 % stake in SpaceX valued at $2.6 billion, a $215 million stake in Amazon now worth $230 million, and a $100 million investment in Shopify now valued at $130 million. Kushner’s personal cash invested in Thrive’s funds grew from an estimated $186 million in 2024 to $500 million by June.

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• In the August investor letter, Kushner wrote that “more than half” of Thrive’s $65 billion in assets are “driven by investment gains.”

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• A lawyer representing NBA team controlling governor Jeanie Buss publicly denied that Buss and her five siblings had reached an agreement to sell their collective 17.8 % stake in the Lakers, a statement that could complicate the $12.5 billion transaction.

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• Lakers stake valuation: While Forbes estimates Kushner’s overall net worth, the value of his prospective Lakers ownership remains undetermined because the sale has not closed.

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• Buss family consent: The lawyer’s denial of a sibling agreement contrasts with earlier reports that the Buss heirs were cooperating on the sale, leaving the exact ownership structure of the final transaction unclear.

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• “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,” — Josh Kushner, venture capitalist

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