Jared Corey Kushner (born January 10, 1981) is an American businessman, investor and political operative. He is principal owner of the real estate holding and development company Kushner Properties and Observer Media, publisher of the weekly New York Observer. Kushner is the son of American real estate developer Charles Kushner and is married to Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President-elect of the United States Donald Trump. He was among the senior advisors of Trump's presidential campaign, and described as the architect of Trump's digital media campaign. He currently plays a key role in Trump's transition team. From 2007 to 2016, he spent at least $7 billion on New York real estate. In 2007, at age 26, he made the most expensive single-building property purchase in US history. In 2011, Kushner brought in Vornado Realty Trust as a 50% equity partner in the ownership of the building.From the outset of the presidential campaign of his father-in-law Donald Trump, Kushner was the architect of Trump's digital, online and social media campaigns, enlisting talent from Silicon Valley to run a 100 person social-media team dubbed "Project Alamo". Kushner has also helped as a speechwriter and was tasked with working to establish a plan for Trump's White House transition team should he be elected. He was for a time seen as Trump's de facto campaign manager, succeeding Corey Lewandowski, who was fired in part on Kushner's recommendation in June 2016, He has been intimately involved with campaign strategy, coordinating Trump's visit in late August to Mexico and he was believed to be responsible for the choice of Mike Pence as Trump's running mate. Kushner's "sprawling digital fundraising database and social media campaign" has been described as "the locus of his father-in-law’s presidential bid".
On July 5, 2016 Kushner wrote an open letter in the New York Observer addressing the controversy around a tweet from the Trump campaign containing allegedly antisemitic imagery. He was responding to his own paper's editorial by Dana Schwartz criticizing Kushner's involvement with the Trump campaign.[38] In the letter, Kushner noted, "In my opinion, accusations like “racist” and “anti-Semite” are being thrown around with a carelessness that risks rendering these words meaningless."During the presidential transition, he was said to be Donald Trump's closest advisor along with Trump's three oldest children.[40] Trump was reported to have requested the top-level security clearance for him to attend the Presidential daily intelligence briefings as his staff-level companion, along with General Mike Flynn who already has the clearance.
