Billionaire Joshua Kushner just bought the Lakers for $12.5 billion—OpenAI's Sam Altman once said he 'doesn't care' what others think
Fortune Orianna Rosa Royle
Joshua Kushner says he’s buying the Lakers with Bob Iger for $12.5 billion. If the NBA signs off, it’ll be the priciest U.S. team sale ever.
Based on reporting by Fortune, Orianna Rosa Royle — read the original for the full story.
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Joshua Kushner has lined up a bid for the Los Angeles Lakers with former Disney chief Bob Iger, and the price tag is a staggering $12.5 billion. The deal still needs approval from the NBA’s Board of Governors, but if it clears, it would set a U.S. record for a professional sports team sale. That’s a very big number, even by today’s billionaire standards.
Kushner’s rise has been built less on flash than on a knack for getting into companies early and staying there. He founded Thrive Capital in 2011 at 26, and the firm has backed Instagram, Spotify and OpenAI. His family background is loud enough on its own — Charles Kushner, Jared Kushner, Karlie Kloss — but Thrive is what made Joshua Kushner a force in venture capital.
OpenAI is the clearest example of how that style has paid off. Thrive has put in more than $2 billion since the company’s beginnings, including roughly $1 billion in December at a $285 billion valuation. That is a far cry from the mood in the early days, when even Sam Altman was telling Kushner the company was no sure thing. Now OpenAI sits at around $895 billion, up from $157 billion when Kushner spoke to Fortune less than two years ago.
Kushner’s pitch, at bottom, is almost stubbornly simple: back the people, then stay patient. He told Fortune he likes concentrated bets on founders and ideas, and he leans on the long-term thinking of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. Altman later put the same thing in plainer language, saying Kushner makes high-conviction bets and doesn’t worry too much about what other investors think.
The Lakers bid fits that pattern. Kushner and Iger already have a relationship through Thrive, which also owns minority stakes in the San Francisco Giants and the Miami Heat, and Kushner once owned a piece of the Memphis Grizzlies. But this is the kind of move that turns a venture capitalist into something bigger: not just a backer of teams and startups, but a buyer of trophies.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is what happens when venture capital decides it wants a front-row seat to prestige, not just returns. The Lakers may get a new owner, but the real story is how finance keeps buying its way into culture and calling it conviction. Very efficient, very expensive, and not exactly subtle.
Read more about this at: Fortune