At just 35 years of age, Ivanka Trump’s husband Jared Kushner has been appropriately successful in just about everything he’s done. A real estate scion in New York City, he is also publisher of the Observer and the son of a wealthy developer who gave him his head start.
In more than a few ways, he represents the man for whom he has worked doggedly over the past year: Donald Trump.
There was perhaps no one person more dedicated to championing Trump for president than his son-in-law, who worked extensively behind the scenes to help with everything from staffing to speechwriting. Campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks told the Associated Press, “people are hopeful that [Kushner’s involvement] will continue in the administration.”
He is the grandson of Holocaust survivors
It’s been widely reported that during their courtship, Ivanka had to convert to Judaism. That’s because Jared is an Orthodox Jew — and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, no less.
During the campaign, Kushner revealed that his grandparents Joe and Rae Kushner were Holocaust survivors from Poland who immigrated to America following the war. Not all of his family was happy about it, according to Politico.
He became a multimillionaire in college
Flickr/Anthony Quintano
By the time he entered Harvard, reportedly following a $2.5 million donation to the school by Charles Kushner, Jared was already entrenched in the real estate business. He sold buildings in Massachusetts for a reported $20 million in profit as a student. With those earnings, he was able to purchase the New York Observer and get into the newspaper business.
Really, it all started in the 1980s, though when his father started billion-dollar real estate firm Kushner Companies. The father and son duo laid claim in 2007 to the most expensive purchase of a single building in U.S. history — 666 Fifth Avenue in New York.
His dad went to prison for tax fraud
Although he has since returned to 666 Fifth Avenue to resume running the family business alongside his son, Charles Kushner was put in jail in 2004 by then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie. The elder Kushner was found guilty on charges of tax evasion, illegal campaign donations and witness tampering.
That caused Jared to abandon his plans to become a prosecutor. “Seeing my father’s situation, I felt what happened was obviously unjust in terms of the way they pursued him,” he said in 2014. “I just never wanted to be on the other side of that and cause pain to the families I was doing that to, whether right or wrong. The moral weight of that was probably a bit more than I could carry.”
Christie, meanwhile, has no position in Trump’s Cabinet and his political future remains unclear.
He’s not a big fan of traditional media
Flickr/Jason Howie
While Ivanka taps into Instagram’s user base to help promote her fashion and lifestyle brand, Jared will have none of social media. His Twitter profile has 15.1k followers, but no tweets. He once described reading the Observer, the publication which he owns, as “unbearable” and “like homework.”
He does however see an opportunity within the digital framework. After shuttering the print edition and growing the Observer’s digital readership by millions, he helped the Trump campaign amass a huge voter database through Facebook and collect information on the president-elect’s followers that will serve as a framework for future campaigns.
“What we found is that our people have organized incredibly well on the Web,” he said at the time. “Growing the digital footprint has really allowed us to take his message directly to the people.”
His role in Washington politics grows by the day
Jared Kushner walks with Trump’s Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon at Indianapolis International Airport, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, in Indianapolis, Ind. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Kushner’s influence over his father-in-law’s presidential campaign can be seen far and wide: The decision to fire Corey Lewandowski, hire Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff, reigning in the influence of Gov. Christie.
Forbes recounted his efforts to win the White House campaign, and Silicon Valley elites were quick to weight in.”It’s hard to overstate and hard to summarize Jared’s role in the campaign,” PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel told the magazine. “If Trump was the CEO, Jared was effectively the chief operating officer.”
“Jared Kushner is the biggest surprise of the 2016 election,” recalls former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “Best I can tell, he actually ran the campaign and did it with essentially no resources.”
Now with his family set to move to Washington, D.C. and likely take active roles in the administration, the 35-year-old will have a chance to help run the country.