Any dramatist seeking a character through whom to distil the sold-out madness of the present times could do a lot worse than President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Yesterday exposed Jared’s starring role in not one but two current deals. 1. History’s biggest-ever leveraged buyout, of video game giant Electronic Arts (EA), which Kushner’s firm is taking private and effectively into Saudi ownership. And 2. “Eternal peace in the Middle East”, as per what has been widely referred to as “the Kushner-Blair plan” for Gaza. Busy week for Jared! He’s popping up at so many seismic moments – just call him Forrest Trump.
Quick refresher on our boy: he is married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, and previously served as a senior adviser in his father-in-law’s first administration, taking the opportunity of Trump’s election loss/unfortunate insurrection-fostering to seemingly leave frontline politics and start his own investment firm. And contrary to popular conjecture that he would be a pariah after that period, Jared sails unstoppably on. These days his appearance is so coolly detached and rarefied that he looks more like a drawing of Jared Kushner, or maybe like the cyborg you’d build to covertly replace Jared Kushner after the real one was plagued by conscience glitches.
And so: Jared’s manic Monday. It feels like we should address his now-activated plan for ending the horrendous war on Gaza first, before we do the gaming mega-deal. Unfortunately, the timeline of the Kushner calendar had things in a different order. It was video games/Saudi laundering first, then Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu coming over to the White House later to explain how incredibly keen he was to sign up to a plan to stop doing the things he’s very remorselessly doing.
The morning saw the announcement that EA – who make huge franchises like EA FC (Fifa, to anyone who plays it) and Madden NFL – was being taken private in a $55bn deal brokered by Kushner, with the Saudi regime’s investment fund as the majority owner. Worried it might rub up against regulatory opposition? In the circumstances, please don’t be. As the FT put it: “People close to the discussions say Kushner’s involvement would also ease the deal’s path through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which adjudicates on deals involving foreign buyers.”
Why am I reminded of the guy in Goodfellas who brings the Air France heist to the gang and dismisses their concerns about security. “Security? You’re looking at it. It’s a joke. I’m the midnight-to-eight man.” Either way, it’s instructive to learn that some foreign ownership of firms with access to the data of US citizens is sometimes very good and very permitted. Sorry, TikTok! Maybe you guys should have found a way to make your existence worth the wider Trump family’s while. (And you know what? Maybe you still will …)
Not that that was the tack Jared went with for his statement on the deal, preferring instead to eulogise EA. “I’ve admired their ability to create iconic, lasting experiences,” he explained, “and as someone who grew up playing their games – and now enjoys them with his kids – I couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead.”
Onwards then to the afternoon, which saw the world and other interested parties finally have on-the-record confirmation that what’s being cooked up for Gaza is an international advisory council called the Board of Peace, which would be chaired by Donald Trump, and provide undefined oversight to a committee of apolitical Palestinian technocrats who would administer the territory. Also on this board: our own Mr Tony Blair, who has been working on Gaza plans for a while before pooling work with Jared, along with the proposal’s other architect, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. Frustrating lovers of symmetry, Kushner didn’t actually issue a statement for this bit of his day, sparing us something on the lines of, “I grew up playing Risk and watching Tony Blair wage peace in the Middle East – now I get to do both with him. Honestly, the dream.” Then again, his silence on this putative deal reflects the fact that Jared no longer cares for the front-of-house role he held during Trump’s last administration.
But it would be a mistake to think Kushner hasn’t simply graduated somewhere even more operational and even less accountable. If there is a backroom now, Jared is in the backroom to that backroom – not the backroom where it happens, but the backroom where it really happens. He was reportedly in the meetings with Netanyahu on Sunday at the Washington hotel the Israeli prime minister was staying at, presumably ducking out from time to time to finalise the EA announcement.
That deal came off in significant part because Kushner was able to work the deep ties he forged in Saudi during that first time stint as Trump’s envoy, while Gaza’s future has tellingly often been pitched as a development opportunity by his father-in-law’s administration. All in all, then, it also feels like a mistake to speak discretely of Kushner’s business and political manoeuvring. I want to say his activity is divided into political and business spheres … but it often doesn’t really seem to be divided at all. Perhaps we should think of it as a hybrid doctrine: dealpolitik. Money, power, carve-outs, carve-ups – as the classic EA Sports slogan used to say … it’s in the game.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
