Jared Kushner and Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin's investment envoy, have held talks about bringing a US investor into the Nord Stream pipelines that carried Russian gas to Germany before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, five people with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters on 8 October. The topic "remains on the agenda," two of them said. The same two men have discussed selling Lukoil's refineries and petrol stations in Europe and elsewhere to a consortium of the US International Development Finance Corporation and investors from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with US sanctions on the assets lifted, according to two other people who spoke to Reuters.

A White House official told Reuters there had been "no Nord Stream discussions recently" and that "any deals will have to be negotiated by Russia with DFC (US International Development Finance Corporation) and Treasury and must benefit United States taxpayers and companies." On Lukoil, the official said: "Steve (Witkoff) and Jared (Kushner) worked with DFC to negotiate a substantial upfront payment and profits interest for the United States."

Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law. Witkoff is a New York property developer and Trump's longtime friend and golf partner. Both negotiate for the United States with Putin's government over Ukraine and with Israel and Arab mediators over Gaza. Witkoff is Trump's special envoy and takes no salary, his spokeswoman has said. Kushner serves as an unpaid volunteer, an arrangement under which he files no public financial disclosure. Affinity Partners, the private equity firm Kushner founded the day after Trump's first term ended, is a private company and is not required under US law to say where it invests.

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates' national security adviser, helps oversee Lunate, one of the largest investors in Affinity Partners. An investment vehicle backed by Tahnoon bought 49 per cent of World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company founded by Trump, his sons and Witkoff and run by Witkoff's son Zach, for $500 million four days before Trump's second inauguration, the Wall Street Journal reported. Tahnoon's International Holding Company is expected to lead the consortium now ahead in the bidding for Lukoil's foreign assets, according to the Financial Times. Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat, Syrian-born billionaires based in Qatar who are financing a luxury resort in Albania with Kushner and Ivanka Trump, would hold another stake.

Kushner's firm became the largest shareholder in Phoenix Financial, one of Israel's biggest insurers and investment managers, five days before Trump's second inauguration. Phoenix has at least $265 million invested in Elbit Systems, Israel's largest weapons maker, and holdings in eight other companies that supply the Israeli military, CNN reported on 1 October. Affinity sold a quarter of its Phoenix holding in July for about $343 million, more than five times what it paid for its first block of shares, and its remaining 7.4 per cent was worth more than $1 billion.

Kushner, Witkoff and Trump administration officials have said there is no conflict between the envoys' diplomacy and their private interests. "What people call conflict of interest, Steve and I call experience," Kushner told CBS's "60 Minutes" in October 2025, describing "trusted relationships that we have throughout the world." Anna Kelly, the White House principal deputy press secretary, told CNN that Kushner's "personal business activities have nothing to do with his diplomatic engagements, which he conducts on a volunteer basis at the President's request." A spokeswoman for Witkoff told the New York Times that he "has no conflict of interest and no financial stake in this matter," referring to Lukoil. "There is no indication that Mr. Kushner or Mr. Witkoff themselves stand to profit," the New York Times reported of the Lukoil deal.

Putin's Lukoil request

Kushner and Witkoff landed in Moscow on 5 September 2026. Dmitriev met them at the airport with a sign reading "Welcome to Moscow Peacemakers," CBS News reported. The envoys talked with Putin at the Kremlin that evening for more than three hours, according to NPR. Dmitriev and Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy aide, sat in. Ushakov said afterwards that the conversation was "constructive, extremely frank and trustful," and NPR reported that he said the talks had touched on joint US-Russian economic ventures.

Putin asked the two envoys at that meeting to get the sale of Lukoil's international assets done, three people familiar with the meeting told the New York Times. He proposed it as a way of showing Russians that they could do business with the United States, one of the people said. Kushner and Witkoff said they would work on it, seeing a chance to build good will with Putin's government and to lower global energy prices, according to the newspaper. It was the first time Lukoil had come up in Putin's talks with the two men, one person familiar with the matter said.

Lukoil is Russia's largest private oil company. The decision on the sale of its foreign assets is widely seen on the Russian side as Putin's to make, the New York Times reported, and the decision on the US side rests with Trump. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control must license any sale, and a Treasury spokeswoman told the New York Times that the office "implements foreign policy as determined by the White House." People involved in the sale told the newspaper that the key decisions were being made by officials at the White House.

Kushner and Witkoff flew from Moscow to Kyiv and met President Volodymyr Zelensky on 6 September. Speaking in Kyiv days after the Moscow meeting, Kushner said he had talked to European counterparts about how the war had pushed up energy prices and called for "prosperity agreements" to encourage peace and give "leaders ... something to look forward to," Reuters reported.

Dmitriev met the two envoys again in New York on 25 September to discuss "US-Russia cooperation and a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine," CNN reported, citing sources. On 28 September he met officials from the Treasury and the Energy Department in Washington. A US official described the purpose as "to continue constructive discussions on a peaceful resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict," including possible energy projects after the war. Dmitriev told reporters during the visit that "dialogue" with the United States was "continuing across many areas, including energy," the New York Times reported.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said on 1 October: "Regretfully, as before, the Americans link this entire process, despite the obvious benefit, to the Ukrainian settlement." The Trump administration had signalled in mid-September that some deals with Russia could go ahead before the war ended, and people familiar with the matter told the New York Times that the Lukoil sale was one of them.

Kushner and Witkoff are due to meet Ukrainian officials, national security advisers from France, Germany and the UK and representatives of the EU and NATO on 9 October to discuss "a new unified proposal covering all aspects of the conflict and aimed at ending the war," Voice of America reported.

From "stop the killing" to a federal stake

The Treasury put Lukoil and Rosneft, Russia's two largest oil companies, under sanctions on 22 October 2025. The press release was headed "Treasury Sanctions Major Russian Oil Companies, Calls on Moscow to Immediately Agree to Ceasefire," and cited "Russia's lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: "Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire." He described the two companies as Russia's "two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin's war machine."

US sanctions forced Lukoil to sell everything it owned outside Russia and gave the US government a veto over every buyer. Lukoil valued the international assets at about $20 billion in March 2026, when it booked a $19.8 billion impairment on them. They include oil fields in Cameroon, Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria and Mexico, refineries in the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania and petrol stations in New Jersey and across Europe. Approval of a buyer would release the assets from US sanctions and raise their value immediately, the New York Times reported.

Gunvor, the Geneva commodity trader co-founded by Gennady Timchenko, a Putin associate who sold his stake in 2014, bid first. The Treasury rejected the offer in a post on X in November 2025: "As long as Putin continues the senseless killings, the Kremlin's puppet, Gunvor, will never get a license to operate and profit." Gunvor said it had "for more than a decade actively distanced itself from Russia" and withdrew.

Chevron explored a bid in November 2025. Carlyle, the US private equity firm based in Washington, signed a non-exclusive agreement on 29 January 2026 to buy Lukoil International GmbH, the Austria-based holding company, without its assets in Kazakhstan. Carlyle pitched US ownership of the portfolio as serving the administration's goal of "energy dominance." The deal needed a Treasury licence, which never came, and the agreement lapsed at the end of July 2026, Lukoil said on 8 October. "Intensive negotiations are currently underway with other interested parties," Lukoil said. The company said it expected its licences to be extended in the meantime. Lukoil's Middle East unit also agreed in February 2026 to hand its 75 per cent stake in Iraq's West Qurna-2 oil field to the state-owned Basra Oil Company, a transfer that needs approval from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Bryan Lanza, a senior adviser to Trump's 2024 campaign who works at Mercury Public Affairs, became a consultant to Lukoil's international division in December 2025, Politico reported. One person told Politico he and Mercury were dealing with the US government on the sale. Politico reported that the work did not require registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act or the Lobbying Disclosure Act because it was a commercial transaction. A person familiar with the matter told the New York Times in October that Lanza no longer worked for Lukoil.

Todd Boehly assembled the group that moved ahead of Carlyle in September 2026, according to the Financial Times. Boehly is a co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers and a former co-owner of Chelsea football club who made his fortune at Guggenheim Partners and his own firm, Eldridge Industries, and in sports and entertainment, including the purchase of Bruce Springsteen's music catalogue. He has little experience in oil and gas. He gave $1 million to MAGA Inc., the pro-Trump political committee, in December 2025, as the Lukoil negotiations were intensifying, and $1 million through Eldridge to Trump's inauguration, the New York Times reported, citing Federal Election Commission filings.

Sheikh Tahnoon's International Holding Company is expected to lead the Boehly consortium alongside Allied Investment Partners, another Emirati firm, the Financial Times reported. The Al-Khayyat family would take a smaller stake. The DFC would take a stake in the mid-teens per cent, according to two people the newspaper cited. A large share of the company that emerges, and of its profits, would be foreign-owned, participants in the negotiations told the New York Times.

The DFC was set up to invest in and lend to development projects abroad. Ben Black, whom the Senate confirmed as its chief executive on 7 October 2025, is the son of Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management. A DFC official said the Lukoil deal "would advance the Trump administration's commitment to strengthen U.S. economic security, advance U.S. foreign policy and lower energy prices for everyday Americans." Another DFC official told the New York Times that the deal would produce significant profits for taxpayers and keep strategic infrastructure away from adversaries.

Lukoil's refineries in the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania make diesel and jet fuel, both in short supply since the start of the Iran war, which has driven up prices and given Trump an incentive to back a deal that could ease access to energy, the New York Times reported.

The Treasury has repeatedly extended the licences that keep Lukoil's foreign businesses running while the decision is pending. General License 131J, which allows talks on the sale of Lukoil's international assets, runs until 22 October 2026. General License 128C, which covers Lukoil's petrol stations outside Russia, runs until 29 October.

Hui Chen, a former Justice Department prosecutor and ethics adviser, told the New York Times: "This is an alarming and very concerning set of entanglements. And it means you have to question how the Trump administration is evaluating the different bidders involved here. Are the personal interests involved going to wrongly influence the outcome?"

Nord Stream

Germany bought more than half of its gas from Russia through the two Nord Stream pipelines before February 2022. Gazprom throttled supply to Europe after the invasion, and a series of underwater explosions wrecked the pipelines on 26 September 2022. Nord Stream AG, which owns the first pipeline, is 51 per cent owned by Gazprom. Wintershall Dea and PEG Infrastruktur, an E.ON vehicle, hold 15.5 per cent each, and Gasunie of the Netherlands and Engie of France hold 9 per cent each. The two German shareholders want to keep their stakes to preserve German influence if Gazprom sells, a person told Reuters. Both the US government and the EU have the pipelines under sanctions, which makes any restart illegal.

Stephen Lynch, a US investor, asked the Treasury in February 2024 for permission to bid for Nord Stream 2 if it went to auction, the Wall Street Journal reported in November 2024. He said he expected to buy the pipeline, valued at about $11 billion, for "pennies on the dollar." A court in Zug, Switzerland, approved a creditor settlement for Nord Stream 2 AG in May 2025, keeping the company out of bankruptcy.

Reuters reported on 8 October that a deal "would enable US investors to profit from energy flows to Europe once the war ends." Dmitriev has campaigned for a resumption of Russian gas sales to Germany, and he will meet the leadership of the Alternative for Germany party early next year to discuss selling Russian gas again, according to Reuters. Alternative for Germany, the country's most popular party in polls, wants the pipelines reopened. Trump could waive or soften US sanctions on Nord Stream, Reuters reported, but that would become harder if Democrats win control of Congress in the midterm elections on 3 November.

A US official told Reuters that a deal was unlikely in the medium term. A spokeswoman for Germany's economy and energy ministry said Nord Stream and Russian gas were under sanctions in Europe, that Germany had found alternatives and that any reopening required government approval, which the government did not want. Poland's leadership is watching the discussions and remains firmly opposed, a person with knowledge of the Polish government's thinking told Reuters.

Michael Kellner, a Green member of the Bundestag who ran German energy policy in the aftermath of the invasion as a state secretary, told Reuters: "This threatens to be a dirty deal that will cost Europe dearly. Americans and Russians will share the profits."

German federal prosecutors charged Serhii Kuznietsov, a Ukrainian arrested in Italy in August 2025 and extradited to Germany in November 2025, over the sabotage of the pipelines in July 2026, and his trial in Hamburg is due to begin in late October. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in August 2026: "Those who built this pipeline should be ashamed, not those who shut it down."

The heads of five European intelligence agencies told Reuters in February 2026 that Russia "neither wants nor needs a quick peace" and that the US-led talks were "negotiation theater." Four of the five said the Russian government was using the talks to pursue sanctions relief and business deals.

Putin's dealmaker

Kirill Dmitriev has run the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Russia's sovereign wealth fund, since it was set up in 2011. He was born in Kyiv, studied at Stanford and Harvard and worked at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey before returning to Russia. The US Treasury put him and the fund under sanctions on 28 February 2022, four days after the invasion, and called the fund a "slush fund" for Putin. The EU, the UK, Ukraine and Australia followed in February and March 2022. Putin made Dmitriev his special envoy for investment and economic co-operation with foreign countries in 2025.

Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and the Russian fund set up a $2 billion co-investment programme, $1 billion from each side, on 21 June 2013. The Qatar Investment Authority committed $2 billion to Russian projects through the fund in May 2014. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund signed an agreement to invest in Russia through Dmitriev's fund in 2015, reported at $10 billion. The Kuwait Investment Authority put in $500 million and later $1 billion. The Saudi Public Investment Fund and the Qatar Investment Authority later put money into Affinity Partners.

Dmitriev's channel to Kushner opened in late 2016. Rick Gerson, a hedge fund manager and longtime friend of Kushner, worked with Dmitriev in December 2016 and January 2017 on a plan to repair US-Russian relations covering "cooperation on terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and economic matters," according to the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Dmitriev implied that Putin had approved it. Gerson gave the plan to Kushner, who passed it to Steve Bannon and Rex Tillerson. After the inauguration Dmitriev told Gerson that his "boss" wanted to know the reaction, and he later said the plan had "played an important role" in an early phone call between Trump and Putin. Kushner described Gerson to the House Intelligence Committee in July 2017 as "a guy" and "a friend of Sheikh Muhammad," referring to the Emirati leader.

Dmitriev's fund shared the cost of a shipment of Russian ventilators to the United States in April 2020, during Trump's first term, and he worked with Kushner on the delivery, Reuters reported. The Aventa-M ventilators had been linked to hospital fires in Moscow and St Petersburg that killed six people. They were made by a subsidiary of a company under US sanctions, could not run on the US electrical system and were thrown away as hazardous waste without being used, four House committee chairs wrote on 21 October 2020.

Witkoff said after the release of Marc Fogel, a US teacher held in Russia, in February 2025 that a Russian named Kirill "had a lot to do with this" and that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had been "instrumental." Dmitriev visited the White House on 2 April 2025 with business proposals, the Wall Street Journal reported. Ksenia Karelina, a US-Russian dual national, was exchanged for Arthur Petrov in Abu Dhabi on 10 April 2025, and a Russian source told CNN that Dmitriev had "played an important role."

Dmitriev spent 24 to 26 October 2025 in Miami with Witkoff's team, Axios reported. Kushner attended the talks, held at the Faena Hotel, according to Reuters. Senior State Department and National Security Council officials were left out, as was Keith Kellogg, Trump's envoy for Ukraine, and US intelligence officials raised concerns about dealing with Dmitriev, Reuters reported. "We feel the Russian position is really being heard," Dmitriev told Axios.

A 28-point peace plan, drafted after the Miami meetings and made public in November 2025, called on Ukraine to give up territory and renounce NATO membership. The draft text said "$100 billion of frozen Russian assets will be invested in US-led efforts to rebuild and invest in Ukraine" and that "the United States will receive 50% of the profits from this initiative." The rest of the frozen Russian money "will be invested in a separate US-Russian investment vehicle that will implement joint projects in specific areas," the draft said. Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: "This so-called 'peace plan' has real problems, and I am highly skeptical it will achieve peace."

Dmitriev pitched Witkoff and Kushner on further US-Russian business at Witkoff's home in Miami Beach in November 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported on 29 November. His proposals included putting about $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets into joint projects, mining rare earths in the Arctic, reviving the Sakhalin gas project and restarting Nord Stream. "We believe that the U.S. and Russia can cooperate basically on everything in the Arctic," Dmitriev told the newspaper. Exxon Mobil had held talks with Rosneft about Sakhalin, Gentry Beach, a Texas investor, was seeking a stake in Novatek's Arctic LNG 2 project, and Elliott Investment Management had explored a stake in Nord Stream 2, the Journal reported. Tusk said: "We know this is not about peace. It's about business."

Kushner and Witkoff met Putin at the Kremlin on 2 December 2025 for almost five hours, with Dmitriev and Ushakov present. They met Dmitriev and Ushakov in Miami on 20 December, the day after talks in Berlin with European and Ukrainian officials. They met Putin again in Moscow on 22 January 2026 and led the US side at three-way talks with Ukrainian and Russian officials in Abu Dhabi on 23 and 24 January and on 4 and 5 February, where Dmitriev and Igor Kostyukov, head of Russian military intelligence, led the Russian delegation. The Abu Dhabi rounds produced an exchange of 314 prisoners of war, 157 from each side, and no ceasefire. Between the rounds, on 31 January, Dmitriev met Kushner, Witkoff, Bessent and Josh Gruenbaum in Miami.

Sheikh Tahnoon's stakes

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan is the brother of the UAE's president, Mohamed bin Zayed, the country's national security adviser and the chairman of G42, the Abu Dhabi artificial intelligence company.

Qatar Investment Authority and Lunate, an Abu Dhabi investment firm backed by the state holding company ADQ, put $1.5 billion into Affinity Partners in late 2024, Bloomberg reported on 20 December 2024. The talks began in February 2024 and closed before the US election, taking Affinity's assets to $4.6 billion, according to AGBI. Middle East Eye reported in March 2025 that Lunate is overseen by Tahnoon, and the New York Times described him in October 2026 as "effectively a business partner of Mr. Kushner's" through Lunate.

Aryam Investment 1, an Abu Dhabi vehicle backed by Tahnoon, agreed to buy 49 per cent of World Liberty Financial for $500 million four days before Trump's inauguration in January 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported on 1 February 2026. Half was paid upfront. About $187 million went to Trump family entities and at least $31 million to Witkoff family entities, according to the Journal. Eric Trump signed for World Liberty. Executives from G42 helped manage Aryam and took seats on World Liberty's board. David Wachsman, a World Liberty spokesman, confirmed the stake to the New York Times.

MGX, an Abu Dhabi investment fund that Tahnoon chairs, announced a $2 billion investment in Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange, on 12 March 2025. Zach Witkoff said on 1 May 2025 at a conference in Dubai that World Liberty's USD1 stablecoin would be used to complete the deal. Two weeks later the Trump administration agreed to let the UAE buy hundreds of thousands of advanced AI chips, many of them for G42, the New York Times reported. Witkoff backed the chip agreement. Trump administration officials and World Liberty said the two were unrelated.

The New York Times reported that World Liberty generated $799 million for Trump in 2025, in part because of the $2 billion purchase by Tahnoon's affiliate. Other outlets reading the same 927-page financial disclosure, released on 30 June 2026, gave lower figures for the World Liberty income, between about $500 million and $588 million from token and equity sales, and the Associated Press reported that the disclosure also showed "nearly $200 million" paid to Trump as a "capital contribution" linked to the UAE stake. The disclosure showed at least $1.4 billion in crypto income overall.

International Holding Company, the Abu Dhabi conglomerate chaired by Tahnoon, is expected to lead the Boehly consortium's bid for Lukoil's foreign assets, according to the Financial Times.

The Al-Khayyat brothers and the Albanian islands

Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat were born in Syria and moved to Qatar during the Syrian civil war. Both attended Trump's inauguration in January 2025. They have built a portfolio of oil interests and planned projects in Syria, Libya and Iraq, the New York Times reported, and they would hold a stake in the Lukoil consortium.

The Al-Khayyat brothers are financing a multibillion-dollar luxury resort in southern Albania with Kushner and Ivanka Trump, the New York Times reported on 19 April 2026, and Ramez Al-Khayyat confirmed the partnership to the newspaper. Ramez Al-Khayyat met Ivanka Trump in Albania about the project earlier in 2026, while the Lukoil negotiations were under way. Six foreign companies controlled by the family hold 100 per cent of Sazan Operations, the project company, according to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. Reported plans include 800 rooms, a golf course, a casino and a water park.

Albania's parliament amended its law on protected areas in February 2024, and Kushner announced plans for Sazan island and the Zvërnec peninsula the following month. Albania's government gave a Kushner-linked company "strategic investor" status in December 2024. Sazan Real Estate Development was registered in Qatar in October 2025. Artur Shehu agreed on 21 November 2025 to sell land at Zvërnec for about €5.5 million, and the sale was finalised on 26 April 2026 at €122 million, according to an AFP timeline. The first building permit was issued three days later. Protests began on 30 May 2026, and Albania's special anti-corruption prosecutor has opened an investigation.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, widened his inquiry into Kushner on 25 August 2026 to cover what he called a "suspicious" land purchase, citing a Wall Street Journal report that Kushner had paid more than $120 million for the land.

Affinity withdrew on 16 December 2025 from a second Balkan project, a hotel and tower on the site of the former Yugoslav army general staff headquarters in Belgrade, hours after Serbian prosecutors proposed an indictment against Culture Minister Nikola Selaković over the building's loss of protected status. "We are withdrawing our application at this time and will not pursue further participation," Affinity said.

Affinity's foreign money

Kushner incorporated the company that became Affinity Partners on 21 January 2021, the day after Trump's first term ended. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, committed $2 billion six months later. The fund's board overruled a panel of its advisers who had cited "the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management," the New York Times reported in April 2022. Kushner had built a close relationship with Mohammed bin Salman as a senior White House adviser in Trump's first term.

Affinity collected about $157 million in fees from foreign investors between 2021 and 2024, including $87 million paid by the Saudi government, the Guardian reported in September 2024. Affinity managed about $3 billion at the start of 2024 and about $4.8 billion by the end of that year. Its Form ADV filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, dated 22 March 2026, put assets under management at $6.16 billion at the end of 2025, about 99 per cent of it attributed to people and institutions outside the United States.

Representative Robert Garcia, the senior Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, and Senator Ron Wyden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote to Affinity on 19 March 2026 that Kushner was seeking at least $5 billion more in foreign capital and was "being paid millions of dollars by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies while leading diplomatic negotiations with Iran and Russia." Wyden said: "The U.S. becomes less safe and more corrupt every day Jared Kushner remains involved in our political system." Garcia said: "If he's getting influenced by cash from other countries, America's national security is at risk."

Raskin wrote to Kushner on 16 April 2026 promising an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee. He cited Affinity's $6.16 billion in assets, called Kushner's dual roles "completely irreconcilable and unethical" and a "glaring and incurable conflict of interest," and asked for Kushner's communications with Saudi, Emirati, Qatari and Israeli officials since July 2024. Raskin said on 25 August that Kushner had not responded.

Affinity joined Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Silver Lake in the $55 billion take-private of Electronic Arts, the video game publisher, which was announced in September 2025 and completed on 4 August 2026. The buyers paid $210 a share in cash, financed with about $36 billion of equity and $20 billion of debt from JPMorgan, and the Saudi fund rolled over its existing 9.9 per cent stake. Affinity also committed $200 million to Paramount Skydance's $108.4 billion bid for Warner Bros Discovery, alongside the Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority and L'imad Holding of Abu Dhabi, before withdrawing on 16 December 2025. Affinity said it had "decided no longer to pursue the opportunity."

Phoenix and Israel's weapons makers

Affinity made its first Israeli investment in 2023, agreeing to pay $150 million for 15 per cent of the Shlomo Group's car rental and credit business. In July 2024 it bought 4.95 per cent of Phoenix Financial for NIS 466 million, about $128.5 million. It roughly doubled the holding on 15 January 2025, five days before Trump's second inauguration, for a total outlay of NIS 932 million, about $304.6 million, and became Phoenix's largest shareholder at about 9.9 per cent, according to Calcalist.

Affinity sold 2.45 per cent of Phoenix on 27 July 2026 for NIS 1.05 billion, about $343 million, more than five times what it paid for its first block of shares. Fidelity bought about 1.6 per cent in the placement. Affinity kept about 7.4 per cent, worth more than $1 billion, and remains the largest shareholder. Phoenix's share price had risen about 420 per cent since Affinity first bought in, Globes reported. Kushner called Phoenix Affinity's "best investment" and told Bloomberg: "Investing in Phoenix in July 2024 was a decision rooted in my belief in Israel's resiliency and the fundamentals of Phoenix's business."

Phoenix holds more than $456 million in nine companies that supply the Israeli military, CNN reported on 1 October 2026, using the quarterly holdings reports Phoenix files with Israeli regulators. Two Israeli forensic accountants who reviewed the filings for CNN said they cover only part of Phoenix's portfolio and leave out retirement accounts, mutual funds, corporate bonds and other securities.

Elbit Systems, Israel's largest weapons maker, accounts for at least $265 million of the total and at least 0.6 per cent of the company, according to Tel Aviv Stock Exchange data. Phoenix has held Elbit for more than a decade. Israel's Defence Ministry awarded Elbit contracts over the past year worth about $200 million for advanced airborne munitions, $48 million for thousands of 155mm artillery shells and $210 million to upgrade the army's battle tanks. Israel accounted for 32 per cent of Elbit's revenue in 2025. Elbit has reported a "material increase" in demand from the Defence Ministry since the war began, and its share price has risen more than 165 per cent over the same period. Elbit high-explosive tank shells and 500-pound bombs have been traced to Israeli strikes that killed civilians, according to analysis by CNN and rights groups.

Next Vision, which makes cameras for military drones and sells them to Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries, accounts for more than $68 million of Phoenix's money. Reshef Technologies, which makes electronic fuzes for artillery shells, accounts for at least $40 million and has reported $165 million in orders from the Defence Ministry since the war began. Phoenix owns more than 10 per cent of Ashot Ashkelon, which supplies gearboxes and transmissions for Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles. Phoenix bought into a fuze maker and a tank parts maker after Affinity became its largest shareholder, CNN reported.

Israel Shipyards, which builds fast attack boats for the Israeli Navy, holds $524,524 of Phoenix investment. The Israel Defense Forces have said boats built by the company launched missiles at Gaza, and the company wrote in a 2026 report that the war had "positive effects on the business." Israel's Defence Ministry signed a $780 million contract with the shipyard in 2024 for five vessels.

Phoenix also holds $4 million in Boeing, which sells Israel fighter jets, helicopters, small diameter bombs and the kits that turn 2,000-pound bombs into precision-guided munitions, and $2.5 million in Caterpillar, whose bulldozers the UN says were used to flatten neighbourhoods in Gaza and Lebanon. All nine companies' share prices rose in 2025, and many said the Gaza war had driven demand.

Israel's war in Gaza, launched after Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in Israel on 7 October 2023, has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry. An independent UN commission of inquiry found in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, a finding Israel rejects.

Kushner wrote on X on 2 October that CNN's report was a "deeply misleading story and headline." He quoted the report's own line that "CNN found no indication that Kushner's actions as a diplomat directly affected the investments reviewed," described Phoenix as "one of Israel's largest publicly traded financial institutions, highly regulated" and said: "I have no role in deciding what Phoenix buys or sells." Phoenix "has performed very well for Affinity and our investors, up more than five times since our initial investment," he wrote. A lawyer for Kushner told CNN that he "never participated in or directed Phoenix's decisions" on investments and had "no involvement in the decision to purchase, hold or sell any of the nine companies." CNN said it stood by its reporting.

Kushner told Forbes in September 2025 that he kept "a very active dialogue" with Phoenix and met its leadership every few weeks. His lawyer confirmed to CNN that the statement was accurate at the time and said the contact had since fallen sharply. Kushner told the "No Priors" podcast the same month that Phoenix, "which is a monster company, is now looking at investments in Saudi Arabia, investments in UAE." He described Affinity's investment committee objecting before the first Phoenix purchase: "They said, 'Look there's about to be a war in the country,' which is what we kind of thought was going to happen." He also said: "My investors from the Middle East are now looking at Israel, and they're saying, 'Wait a minute, maybe there's a benefit to having these wars done.'"

Garcia wrote to Kushner on 5 October 2026 asking for records of all Affinity transactions involving Phoenix, a list of Kushner's visits to Israel and Gaza since 20 January 2025 and a public financial disclosure.

Gaza and the Board of Peace

Kushner began advising Trump on Gaza in May 2025. He stood in the Oval Office in September 2025 as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telephoned Qatar's prime minister after an Israeli strike on Hamas leaders in Doha, and went through a ceasefire outline with Netanyahu's delegation that day. Trump sent him to Sharm el-Sheikh in October 2025 to close the deal. "I have Jared," Trump said. "Find anybody more capable." The ceasefire, the first phase of Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza, took effect in October 2025.

Israeli strikes, shelling and gunfire continued almost daily after the ceasefire. Gaza's health ministry said on 17 June 2026 that Israeli operations had killed 1,005 Palestinians since the ceasefire was agreed. The ministry's toll for the whole war had passed 74,000 by October 2026, according to CNN.

Kushner told "60 Minutes" in October 2025 that he and Witkoff would not be involved in awarding Gaza reconstruction contracts. He presented a "masterplan" for rebuilding Gaza at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 22 January 2026, with a coastal tourism zone for 180 skyscrapers, data centres, industrial zones and a new airport, and told private companies "amazing investment opportunities" awaited them. Reports put the plan's cost at a minimum of $25 billion to $30 billion.

Marc Rowan, chief executive of Apollo Global Management and a member of the Board of Peace, estimated that Gaza held about $115 billion in real estate value that "just needs to be unlocked and financed." He said: "The coastline alone? 50 billion in value on a conservative basis." Yakir Gabay, an Israeli property billionaire on the board, said Gaza's coast should become a "new Mediterranean Riviera" with 200 hotels and said he would not build hotels there himself, Responsible Statecraft reported.

Gothams, a US disaster response company, submitted a plan to the White House that would guarantee it 300 per cent profits and a seven-year monopoly over trucking and logistics for the board, and a January 2026 slide deck for a "Gaza supply system" offered sovereign investors first-year returns of 46 to 175 per cent, Responsible Statecraft reported. Charles Dunne of Arab Center Washington DC said: "The apparent idea is to open Gaza to inflows of public and private money, principally from the Gulf states." Hugh Lovatt of the European Council on Foreign Relations said the role of businessmen such as Rowan and Kushner was "completely at odds with what the Palestinians in Gaza need."

Trump chairs the Board of Peace, set up under his 20-point plan to oversee Gaza's security and reconstruction. Its charter, published in January 2026, describes it as "an international organization that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace" in conflict-affected areas generally, AFP reported. The chairman alone can create or dissolve its subsidiary bodies, chooses its executive board and can be replaced only if he resigns or is incapacitated, according to the charter. Membership lasts three years, except for states that pay more than $1 billion in cash in the first year, which keep their seats.

The Trump administration named Kushner, Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Tony Blair, Rowan, World Bank president Ajay Banga and Robert Gabriel as founding members. Nickolay Mladenov, a former UN envoy for the Middle East, is the board's high representative for Gaza. Twenty states signed the charter at Davos in January 2026, among them Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey, and Israel joined. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who pledged 8,000 peacekeepers for Gaza, said in March 2026 that Indonesia would not pay the $1 billion fee: "We never said that we wanted to contribute $1 billion."

Putin said on 22 January 2026 that Russia could pay its $1 billion fee from Russian assets frozen in the United States. "We could transfer $1 billion to the Board of Peace from Russian assets that were frozen under the previous U.S. administration," he said. Kushner and Witkoff met him in Moscow that evening.

Nine states pledged $7 billion and the United States $10 billion at the board's first meeting in Washington on 19 February 2026, for a Gaza Reconstruction and Development Fund to be managed by the World Bank. Kushner told that meeting: "A lot of these people are volunteers. They're doing this not for any personal gain. People are not personally profiting from this."

The UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait each pledged at least $1 billion at the February meeting. About 1 per cent of the $17 billion pledged had been transferred by May 2026, two officials told the Times of Israel, and the UAE was one of the few donors to pay part of its pledge, sending $100 million to train a new Gaza police force. The board told the UN Security Council on 15 May that "the gap between commitment and disbursement must be closed with urgency."

The Trump administration considered asking Israel to hand part of the Palestinian tax revenue it was withholding to the Board of Peace, five sources told Reuters on 15 May 2026. Israel collects import taxes for the Palestinian Authority under a longstanding arrangement and is meant to pass them on, but has withheld them over the authority's payments to Palestinian prisoners and their families. The authority puts the withheld sum at $5 billion, more than half its annual budget, and has cut salaries for thousands of civil servants. Israel accepted an invitation to join the board, and the Palestinian Authority was left out. "There is no doubt that money held in a bank does nothing to further the President's 20-Point Plan," a board official told Reuters.

The Palestinian Authority said it would contribute to the board if Israel released the withheld revenue, the Times of Israel reported on 20 May. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has blocked the transfers for more than a year, rejected the request, and his office said it could give the Palestinian Authority a foothold in Gaza.

Kushner met Netanyahu in mid-August 2026, after Hamas reportedly agreed to a disarmament roadmap, and a board official called the meeting "lengthy, in depth, and very productive," Reuters reported. Kushner travelled to Israel and Egypt that month with Mladenov and Blair, an executive board member, to push the plan forward after Israeli objections to a deal announced by the Trump administration.

The board's governors presented a six-month plan of 66 projects in infrastructure, education and health, worth about $2.45 billion, at a meeting in New York during the UN General Assembly in September 2026. The plan puts the cost of rebuilding Gaza's physical infrastructure at about $35.2 billion in the medium term and $71.4 billion over 10 years, with work moving north from Rafah as Hamas gives up its weapons and Israeli forces withdraw, The National reported. "Hamas has agreed to give up the weapons but we need to implement that," Kushner said. Mladenov said: "Our goal is to get through the next stage of actually moving from planning to implementation."

Witkoff's money

Witkoff's net worth was about $2.3 billion in April 2026, up about 15 per cent since he joined the administration, Forbes estimated, and his crypto investments had added about $280 million. Forbes valued the Witkoff Group, the property firm he founded in 1997, at about $1.6 billion, and his stake in Elon Musk's merged X, xAI and SpaceX at about $210 million, from a $100 million investment in Musk's 2022 takeover of Twitter. Witkoff bought a Bombardier Global 7500, estimated at about $75 million, with about $58 million in loans from JPMorgan and M&T Bank, according to Forbes.

Witkoff earned nearly $107 million in 2025, up from $34 million in 2024, from the holding company that held his stake in World Liberty Financial, according to a financial disclosure first reported by Bloomberg in September 2026. The Witkoff family received about $130 million from sales of World Liberty's WLFI tokens and sold about half its stake in the company to Tahnoon's Aryam Investment for about $48 million after tax, Forbes estimated. Forbes put the family's remaining stake in the business that issues the USD1 stablecoin at about 6.4 per cent, worth about $60 million, and its locked holding of about 375 million WLFI tokens at about $42 million.

World Liberty said on X in May 2025 that Witkoff was divesting and had "no operational role, no financial interest in WLFI deals, and no influence on day-to-day decisions." An administration spokesperson said in September 2025 that he was "still in the process" of divesting, and Kelly said in September 2026 that he had "fully divested from World Liberty Financial." A person close to Witkoff told the New York Times that he had sold his stake. Zach Witkoff runs World Liberty with Trump's sons.

Witkoff sold a $120 million stake in the Witkoff Group in 2025, according to his first financial disclosure, and his April 2026 disclosure said he was in the process of stepping down as managing partner, Forbes reported. His son Alex runs the firm as co-chief executive. Kelly said in September 2025 that Witkoff was "finalizing" his divestment from the company.

Alex Witkoff approached the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait in 2025 for a proposed $4 billion US commercial property debt fund while his father was negotiating a Gaza ceasefire with officials from the same governments, the New York Times reported in September 2025. A fundraising document projected hundreds of millions of dollars in fees and profit shares, according to the newspaper. Anna LaPorte, a Witkoff Group spokeswoman, said the fund was "preliminary" and that the company "is not moving forward with that fund." Kelly called the report "another bogus smear from the failing New York Times against Steve Witkoff."

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar's prime minister, attended Alex Witkoff's wedding in Palm Beach in 2024, Debra Kamin, one of the New York Times reporters, told Democracy Now, and Steve Witkoff has described him as a friend. The Witkoff Group and Abu Dhabi's Mubadala bought the Park Lane Hotel in Manhattan in 2013 for $653 million, and the Qatar Investment Authority bought it for $623 million in 2023. Witkoff has said his firm was never a partner of the Qatari fund, which took over the hotel by foreclosing on a mezzanine loan to Mubadala.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Murphy opened an inquiry into Witkoff's ethics filings on 18 November 2025, noting that his forms were unsigned. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Representative Greg Stanton at a House hearing in June 2026 that he had seen no evidence Witkoff had made decisions for personal benefit, according to Stanton's office. Witkoff's spokeswoman told the New York Times that he "takes no salary and travels the world on his own plane, at his own expense, working on behalf of President Trump to negotiate peace and bring hostages home to their families."

The Trump family's Gulf deals

Trump earned $59.5 million from foreign licensing deals in 2025, up from about $34.8 million in 2024 and about $6 million in 2023, according to an analysis of his financial disclosure reported by CNBC in August 2026. Saudi-linked developers paid about $25.8 million of the 2025 total and a large Emirati company $11.3 million, and Gulf developers accounted for more than 60 per cent of the foreign licensing income. The National, reading the same disclosure, put the licence and management fees from Gulf developers for projects in Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE at $38 million, including about $21.9 million from the Saudi developer Dar Al Arkan and about $12.5 million from Damac of Dubai. A Trump Organization representative said the filing showed "our commitment to transparency."

Dar Al Arkan, through its London-listed subsidiary Dar Global, is the Trump Organization's main partner in the region. A licensing deal signed with the Saudi developer in November 2022 for a resort in Oman sent more than $6 million to Trump, Forbes reported. The Aida project outside Muscat, on land provided by the Omani government, combines a golf course, a hotel and seaside villas, and earned Trump $1 million in licensing fees in 2024, according to Mother Jones.

Dar Global announced Trump Tower Jeddah in July 2024 and launched it in December 2024. DT Marks KSA LLC, the Trump entity that appears to collect the Saudi licensing money, reported $15.9 million in fees, according to Forbes. Dar Global announced two Trump projects in Riyadh in December 2024 and a $1 billion Trump Plaza Jeddah on 29 September 2025. Dar Al Arkan and Dar Global said on 12 January 2026 that they would build Rayana, a 2.6 million square metre development at Wadi Safar on the western edge of Riyadh, inside the state-backed Diriyah project, with an 18-hole golf course, a Trump International Hotel and Trump Mansions residences. The two Riyadh projects are valued at $10 billion combined, according to AGBI.

Trump Tower Dubai, announced with Dar Global in April 2025, is planned at 80 storeys and about 500 homes, with a gross development value of $1 billion, and about 80 per cent of the units had been sold by September 2026, The National reported. Eric Trump said buyers could pay in bitcoin. Hussain Sajwani's Damac has run the Trump International Golf Club in Dubai since it opened in 2017 and paid Trump between $14.1 million and $30 million in licensing and management fees from 2014 to 2024, according to Mother Jones. Damac also pays Trump for an estate project at Al Raha Beach in Abu Dhabi.

The Trump Organization agreed in April 2025 to lend its name to a golf course and villas at Simaisma in Qatar, part of a $5.5 billion development by Dar Global with Qatari Diar, a company owned by the Qatari state. The Trump licence fee for the Qatar project was $5.25 million, The National reported. The Trump Organization said its contract was with Dar Global alone. Mother Jones put the combined value of the Trump-branded projects in the Gulf at about $17 billion.

Trump toured Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar from 13 May 2025, while the Trump Organization was working on Dar Al Arkan projects in all three countries, Forbes reported. Qatar's royal family gave the US government a Boeing 747-8 jet valued at about $400 million to serve as Air Force One, and the Trump administration accepted it in May 2025. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum of understanding with his Qatari counterpart in July 2025 describing the jet as an "unconditional donation," and Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told the House that the upgrade would likely cost less than $400 million. Trump said in May 2025 that the plane would be decommissioned at the end of his term and displayed at his presidential library in Miami, which Eric Trump is developing.

LIV Golf, the tour financed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, held an event at Trump National Bedminster in July 2022 that brought the club about $800,000, according to Forbes, and Trump attended a LIV dinner before its event at Trump National Doral in April 2025. Donald Trump Jr. attended the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh in October 2025 with Omeed Malik, whose firm 1789 Capital had brought him in to raise money. Forbes calculated that Trump and his extended family collected about $50 million from Saudi-connected deals in 2024, including Affinity's fees from the Public Investment Fund.

Trump has described Russia as a "tremendous opportunity" for US business since early 2025, the New York Times reported.

Kushner's earlier Russian contacts

Kushner greeted Sergey Kislyak, then Russia's ambassador to the United States, at a reception at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on 27 April 2016, according to his statement to Congress. On 9 June 2016 he attended the Trump Tower meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer, arranged by Donald Trump Jr. Kushner told Congress the meeting was about Russia's ban on US adoptions and that he emailed an assistant during it: "Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting."

Kushner and Michael Flynn met Kislyak at Trump Tower on 1 December 2016. The Washington Post reported in May 2017 that Kushner proposed setting up a secret communications channel using Russian diplomatic facilities. Kushner told Congress he had asked whether there was an existing channel at the Russian embassy that Russian generals could use to pass on information about Syria and denied proposing a secret channel.

Sergey Gorkov, chairman of the Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank, which has been under US sanctions since 2014, met Kushner in New York on 13 December 2016 and gave him a bag of soil from Novogrudok, the Belarusian town where Kushner's grandparents lived. Kushner told Congress that no business or sanctions were discussed. The bank said at the time that the meeting was part of a business roadshow and that Kushner attended as head of Kushner Companies.

Kushner agreed in May 2015 to buy a 50.1 per cent stake in the Times Square Building in Manhattan for $295 million from Africa Israel Investments, controlled by Lev Leviev, an Uzbek-born Israeli diamond and property magnate who has described himself as a friend of Putin. Yuri Milner, the Russian-born technology investor whose earlier stakes in Facebook and Twitter were partly funded by the state bank VTB and Gazprom Investholding, put $850,000 of his own money into Cadre, the property investment start-up Kushner co-founded, in 2017, according to the Paradise Papers reporting. Milner's spokesman said VTB had no involvement in the Cadre investment.

Oversight

Cynthia Brown, chief ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told CNN: "There are always people who profit from war or government policies. The difference is that the people profiting should not be the people making the decisions to make that policy. And that is what is happening here."

Kelly told CNN the conflict of interest concerns were a "tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump, his family, and his administration for a decade." She cited Kushner's "record of success" in diplomacy, including the Abraham Accords.

Garcia asked Kushner to provide the Phoenix records and a financial disclosure by 19 October 2026.