Jared Kushner has spent much of Donald Trump’s second presidency playing two very different roles.
In one, Trump’s son-in-law has acted as an unofficial American diplomat, helping negotiate some of the most consequential issues in the Middle East, including the war in Gaza.
In the other, Kushner has continued running a private investment business with an extraordinarily valuable financial interest in Israel.
A new CNN investigation has exposed just how closely those two worlds overlap.
Kushner’s private-equity firm, Affinity Partners, is the largest shareholder in Phoenix Financial, one of Israel’s biggest financial groups. Phoenix, in turn, has hundreds of millions of dollars invested in companies supplying weapons, equipment and other products to the Israeli military.
The arrangement does not establish that Kushner changed American foreign policy to benefit his investments.
It does, however, raise an obvious question:
Why is someone helping conduct American diplomacy in a war zone simultaneously allowed to maintain enormous private financial interests connected to businesses operating within that same conflict?
$456 Million Connected to Military Suppliers
CNN examined thousands of Israeli financial records and identified at least nine military-linked companies in Phoenix Financial’s investment portfolio.
Phoenix's disclosed investments in those companies totaled at least $456 million as of June 30.
The largest was approximately $265 million in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.
Phoenix also held more than $68 million in Next Vision, which manufactures cameras used on military drones, and at least $40 million in Reshef Technologies, which makes electronic fuzes for artillery shells.
Other investments identified by CNN included companies involved with warships, tank components and other military equipment.
Affinity does not directly own those defense-company investments.
Instead, Kushner’s firm owns a major piece of Phoenix itself.
That distinction matters.
But so does what happened to the value of Kushner’s investment.
Kushner’s Investment Soared
Affinity initially purchased a 4.95% stake in Phoenix in July 2024 for $128.5 million.
Then came an extraordinary piece of timing.
Five days before Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, Affinity received approval to roughly double its Phoenix investment, making Kushner's firm the company's largest shareholder.
Kushner subsequently became increasingly involved in Trump's Middle East diplomacy.
By October 2025, he was publicly helping negotiate the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Meanwhile, his Phoenix investment was doing extremely well.
In July 2026, Affinity sold approximately one-quarter of its Phoenix holdings for more than $340 million.
CNN reported that the transaction represented proceeds of more than five times the original purchase price of those shares.
And Kushner didn't cash out completely.
After the sale, Affinity remained Phoenix's largest shareholder, with a 7.4% stake valued at more than $1 billion.
Kushner has reportedly called Phoenix Affinity's “best investment.”
The Convenient Advantage of Being a ‘Volunteer’
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the arrangement is how Kushner participates in the Trump administration.
Unlike during Trump's first presidency, Kushner does not hold a formal White House position.
Instead, he operates as a volunteer adviser.
That distinction has enormous consequences.
Because Kushner isn't a normal government employee, he isn't subject to the same financial-disclosure requirements that would ordinarily expose potential conflicts between an official's government responsibilities and private investments.
The result is an extraordinary arrangement.
The president's son-in-law can participate in sensitive international negotiations while simultaneously running a private investment company with billions of dollars at stake — without the transparency normally expected of a senior government official.
Kushner's attorney maintains there is nothing improper about it.
The White House agrees.
“Jared 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,” White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told CNN.
Kushner Says He Doesn't Control Phoenix's Investments
There is an important limitation to CNN's findings.
The investigation found no evidence that Kushner's diplomatic actions directly influenced Phoenix's investments.
Kushner also does not sit on Phoenix's board, according to his attorney, and does not decide which companies Phoenix buys or sells.
His attorney said Kushner has never directed Phoenix's investments in the nine military-linked companies identified by CNN.
Phoenix itself has emphasized that it is a regulated financial institution and said its shareholder value is driven primarily by the performance of its overall business rather than individual investments.
Those facts are important.
But they don't eliminate the underlying ethical question.
Kushner has acknowledged maintaining what he described as an “active dialogue” with Phoenix. His attorney confirmed that Kushner had regular discussions with company management, although those contacts reportedly declined as Kushner became more involved in diplomacy.
And Kushner has openly discussed viewing business investment as part of his broader strategy for transforming relations in the Middle East.
In other words, the separation between businessman Kushner and diplomat Kushner isn't particularly clean.
The Trump Administration's Conflict-of-Interest Problem
This controversy also doesn't exist in isolation.
Democratic lawmakers have already promised investigations into business dealings involving Trump and members of his family if they gain congressional subpoena power, with Kushner's Affinity Partners among the firms attracting scrutiny.
Critics have questioned Affinity's relationships with Middle Eastern investors for years.
Now there is another question to add to the list.
Kushner was helping negotiate American policy involving Israel and Gaza while his privately owned investment company was the largest shareholder in an Israeli financial institution with hundreds of millions of dollars invested in businesses supplying the Israeli military.
His investment became extraordinarily valuable.
His company cashed out more than $340 million.
And because Kushner conducts diplomacy as a “volunteer,” Americans receive substantially less financial transparency than they would if he simply held an official government position.
None of that proves Kushner manipulated American foreign policy for personal profit.
It doesn't need to.
The problem is that an administration supposedly acting on behalf of the American people has constructed a system in which the president's son-in-law can simultaneously operate as diplomat, presidential adviser and billionaire private investor — leaving the public to wonder where one role ends and another begins.
For an administration already surrounded by questions about the intersection of public power and private wealth, that is a remarkable arrangement.
And once again, the people making American policy appear to be doing very well for themselves.