Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital and an in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, has seen his net worth more than triple in a single year, the result of well-timed bets on OpenAI and SpaceX.
Kushner's fortune is estimated at $16.7 billion (about 23.1 trillion won), Forbes reported on the 24th, a figure that excludes the value of his recently acquired stake in the Lakers. His wealth has more than tripled from $5.2 billion (about 7.2 trillion won) a year earlier. That is roughly 17 times the fortune of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and his older brother, and more than three times that of Trump himself.
The sharp rise in Kushner's wealth stems from early investments by his venture capital firm, Thrive Capital, in Instagram, Spotify and, more recently, OpenAI. When Elon Musk's SpaceX went public in June, the value of Thrive's stake in the rocket company reportedly jumped to $10 billion (about 13.8 trillion won). SpaceX later announced it would acquire the AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion (about 83 trillion won), lifting the value of Thrive's 7% stake in Cursor to $4.2 billion (about 5.8 trillion won).
In an August letter to investors obtained by Bloomberg, Kushner said assets under management had surpassed $65 billion (about 90 trillion won). That is about three times the $23 billion (31.8 trillion won) recorded in December 2024 and $15 billion more than the figure listed in a July regulatory filing. In the letter, he said more than half of the assets under management came from investment gains.
Thrive's funds have delivered an average annual return of 33% after fees, outperforming the S&P 500 (about 14%) and the Nasdaq (about 17%) over the same period. He wrote that the firm had generated more than $1 billion in liquidity over the past 12 months and said he saw the potential for billions of dollars in additional liquidity opportunities within the coming quarters.
In the investor letter, Kushner wrote that he had long believed a small number of exceptional companies create disproportionately large value and can compound their advantage far longer than the market expects.
A $5 Million Fund Built by a 25-Year-Old Grew to $10 Billion in 15 Years
Thrive started in New York in 2010 with a $5 million (about 6.9 billion won) fund. Joel Cutler, co-founder of the venture capital firm General Catalyst, provided the seed money. Kushner was 25 at the time, having just spent a year in Goldman Sachs' private equity division after completing an MBA at Harvard Business School. He went on to raise 10 flagship funds, the most recent of which, Thrive X, closed in March with more than $10 billion in committed capital. Billionaire venture investor Marc Andreessen told Forbes in 2017 that Thrive had traced the shortest trajectory of any firm to reach top-tier status and prestige.
The first major success came in 2012. Days after Thrive invested in Instagram at a $500 million valuation, Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion. Cursor, Instacart, Nubank, Robinhood, Spotify and SpaceX have since gone public or been acquired. Anduril (valued at $61 billion, about 84.2 trillion won, in May), Databricks ($190 billion, about 262.4 trillion won, in August) and Stripe ($159 billion, about 219.6 trillion won, in February) remain private. OpenAI, valued at $852 billion (about 1,177 trillion won) in March, is slated to go public next year.
$12.5 Billion Lakers Deal Set to Boost Kushner's Wealth
Joshua Kushner's fortune is expected to grow further, given the planned initial public offering (IPO) of OpenAI, valued at more than $1 trillion. Thrive has also recently moved into investments in publicly traded companies. As of the end of June, it was revealed to hold $215 million in Amazon shares, now worth $230 million. In March, it invested $100 million in the e-commerce platform Shopify, a stake now worth $130 million, and it maintains a 0.14% stake in SpaceX valued at $2.6 billion. Its oldest public-market investment is Oscar Health, a health insurance startup Kushner founded in 2012; the shares have risen 114% this year on subscriber growth and profits, bringing the stake's value to $200 million.
The money Kushner has personally invested in Thrive's funds also rose, from an estimated $186 million (about 260 billion won) in 2024 to $500 million (about 700 billion won) at the end of June this year. On top of that come a portion of the 2% to 2.5% annual management fees Thrive collects from investors, along with its share of performance fees.
The Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA), bought at the highest price ever for a sports franchise, is also expected to add to his wealth. The Lakers deal, in which Kushner and former Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger are joint buyers, is worth about $12.5 billion (about 17.3 trillion won). At the same time, Thrive Holdings, which Kushner set up last year with a plan to acquire service companies and convert them using AI, was valued at $12.5 billion and raised $2 billion (about 2.8 trillion won) from investors including SoftBank.
After completing the fundraising, Kushner said on his social media account that he felt very fortunate to be able to build something during such a profound period of innovation.
