U.S. envoy Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, accused a major news organization on Friday of publishing a “deeply misleading story and headline” about his private equity firm’s ties to Israel’s military industry. He said the work Trump asked him to do, helping “end wars, bring people together and pursue peace,” will not be derailed. In a post on X at 12:07 p.m. on October 2, 2026, Kushner argued that the report’s own findings undercut its framing, and he drew a sharp line between his diplomacy and his investment firm’s stake in an Israeli financial giant.
The Full Post
Kushner published the following statement in full:
“CNN published a deeply misleading story and headline suggesting that my diplomatic work in the Middle East somehow benefited investments in Israeli defense companies.
But CNN’s own reporting says otherwise. Buried behind a paywall, it acknowledges: “CNN found no indication that Kushner’s actions as a diplomat directly affected the investments reviewed.”
Phoenix is not a defense company. It is one of Israel’s largest publicly traded financial institutions, highly regulated and managing approximately $220 billion across thousands of investments.
Think of Phoenix as the Israeli equivalent of Vanguard or Fidelity. It manages the retirement savings of millions of Israelis. The savers don’t choose the individual investments, and neither do I. I have no role in deciding what Phoenix buys or sells. It has performed very well for Affinity and our investors, up more than five times since our initial investment.
Affinity is an SEC-registered investment firm. Our investment in Phoenix is public and dates to before President Trump was re-elected and before I returned to public service. Affinity does not own the defense companies highlighted in CNN’s story.
Those facts make for a less provocative headline, but a much more accurate story.
Misleading stories will not distract me from the work President Trump asked me to do: help end wars, bring people together and pursue peace. That work is too important.”
What Kushner Is Responding To
The post answered an investigation published Thursday that examined Phoenix Financial, a Tel Aviv-based firm in which Kushner’s company, Affinity Partners, is the largest shareholder. Using Israeli financial transparency laws, the report traced a portion of Phoenix’s holdings to hundreds of millions of dollars invested in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, and at least eight other companies supplying equipment to the Israeli military. The report said those holdings range from drones to warships to demolition machinery.
The investigation also said Affinity does not directly hold a stake in any of the nine companies it identified. It added that Affinity nonetheless stands to benefit when Phoenix turns a profit. The report found “no indication” that Kushner’s diplomatic actions directly affected the investments it reviewed, the same line Kushner cited in his post.
The Investment Timeline
Affinity was incorporated on January 21, 2021, one day after Trump’s first term ended. It later secured a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. In 2024, the firm bought a 4.95% stake in Phoenix for $128.5 million, and it roughly doubled that position five days before Trump was sworn back into office in January 2025, making it Phoenix’s largest shareholder.
Kushner has described the Phoenix investment as a bet on Israel’s economic strength, saying the July 2024 decision was “rooted in my belief in Israel’s resiliency and the fundamentals of Phoenix’s business.” In July of this year, Affinity cashed out a quarter of its stake for more than $340 million, a return of more than five times its initial purchase. It still holds a 7.4% stake worth more than $1 billion.
The Defense Holdings at the Center of the Dispute
The largest of Phoenix’s military-linked stakes, worth at least $265 million, is in Elbit Systems. Israel was Elbit’s biggest market in 2025, accounting for 32% of its revenue. Phoenix has been invested in the company for more than a decade, well before Affinity bought into Phoenix.
Other holdings include more than $68 million in Next Vision, a maker of cameras for military drones, and at least $40 million in Reshef Technologies, which produces electronic fuzes for artillery shells. Some of Phoenix’s military-linked stakes predate Affinity’s rise to largest shareholder, while others came afterward. Phoenix also holds small stakes in American manufacturers Boeing and Caterpillar, valued at $4 million and $2.5 million respectively.
Kushner’s Attorney, Phoenix and the White House Respond
An attorney for Kushner said he has “never participated in or directed Phoenix’s decisions” on where to invest. The attorney added that he had “no involvement in the decision to purchase, hold or sell any of the nine companies” and has never served on Phoenix’s board. A Phoenix spokesperson noted that the firm is “regulated” and that “shareholder value is derived primarily from operating performance rather than investment returns.”
White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly dismissed the conflict-of-interest concerns as a “tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump, his family, and his administration for a decade.” She said 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.”
The Volunteer Envoy Question
Much of the scrutiny stems from Kushner’s unusual status. He acts as a volunteer envoy rather than a government employee, an arrangement that spares him from the financial disclosure requirements attached to a formal government post. As a private firm, Affinity is also not required under U.S. law to disclose where it invests.
Kushner began advising Trump on the Middle East in May 2025, as the war in Gaza reached its peak intensity. He was a key architect of the Gaza ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas last October. He later unveiled a reconstruction “masterplan” for Gaza at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January and serves as an executive member of Trump’s “Board of Peace.”
Congressional Democrats Press Their Case
Congressional Democrats had questioned Kushner’s dual roles before this week’s report. In March, Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Robert Garcia sent a letter about Kushner’s fundraising for Affinity while serving as an envoy. In April, House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin opened an investigation, calling the arrangement “completely irreconcilable and unethical.”
Raskin expanded the probe on August 25, saying Kushner had not responded to the committee’s earlier demand for records. Democrats have signaled the investigations could gain force if they win back the House in the November midterms.
Kushner’s Own Words on Business and Diplomacy
Kushner has spoken openly about merging commercial and diplomatic goals. In a September 2025 podcast interview, he said, “When you get an Arab and Israeli together and they start talking about a business opportunity, they forget about everything else and then they realize that there’s a lot of similarities.” In an October 2025 interview, he said of potential conflicts: “What people call conflicts of interests, Steve and I call experience and trusted relationships,” referring to fellow envoy Steve Witkoff.
His attorney also acknowledged that Kushner regularly spoke with Phoenix management in the past. The attorney said those interactions have since fallen off significantly as he has become “substantially more engaged in volunteer public-service and diplomatic efforts.”
The War Behind the Headlines
The dispute unfolds against the backdrop of Israel’s war in Gaza, which began after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks that killed more than 1,200 Israelis. Palestinian health ministry figures put the death toll from Israel’s campaign above 74,000. Israel says the campaign is necessary for national security. Even after the ceasefire Kushner helped broker, Israel continues to strike the enclave on a near-daily basis, leaving peace efforts unfinished.
Why It Matters
For Kushner, the stakes extend beyond one news cycle. His credibility as a negotiator depends on the perception that he serves American interests rather than his own financial ones, and his firm’s holdings give critics a ready target as peace talks remain unresolved. His post draws a clear distinction between a financial institution managing retirement savings and the defense firms it may hold, and between ownership of Phoenix and ownership of the companies in its portfolio.
As wars in the Middle East continue to shape U.S. military and diplomatic priorities, how much influence unofficial envoys wield, and how their finances are disclosed, is likely to remain a live question in Washington. For now, Kushner has made his position plain: the facts, as he sees them, make “a less provocative headline, but a much more accurate story,” and the work of pursuing peace goes on.