Economic analyst Steven Rattner on Monday shared a pie chart showing that all but 1% of the $3 billion in investments in former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s private equity firm Affinity Partners came from foreign sources after he “spent much of his White House tenure cozying up” to Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman. The Saudis invested $2 billion in Kushner’s fund while the United Arab Emirates and Qatar each added another $200 million. About $625 million came from other non-U.S. sources while only $31 million came from sources inside the U.S. Rattner told MSNBC that he’s “never seen this” in 40 years in the business.

“I’ve never seen somebody get two-thirds of their money from a single investor. Usually a single investor might be a few percent of the fund, might be 5 percent, occasionally 10 percent,” he said. While Kushner has hired some people for his fund, “I’ve seen nothing else about what he’s actually done with the money,” Rattner continued.

“It is normal to invest this money over a period of several years, so I don’t think we can draw a firm conclusion yet. But, again, we’re going back to a guy who’s a real estate guy, and frankly, not a particularly good one at that, who’s suddenly got $3 billion trying to do private equity deals competing against people who’ve been in this business for a long time. And I wouldn’t, if I were the Saudis, count on making a lot of money from this any time soon,” he said, adding: “U.S. private equity firms still raise the vast bulk of their money from U.S. investors. This is extraordinary — unprecedented — I’ve never seen anything like it.”

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
      link
      fedilink
      2610 months ago

      They’re not very creative, so they can’t think up other nefarious schemes so they just accuse their enemies of what they’re doing. Grooming kids? Check. Corrupt sons of presidents involved with “overseas investors?” Check. Stealing an election? Check.

      • @Phlogiston@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        1010 months ago

        Its not about being creative — its about muddying the swamp they’re swimming in so that you can’t see their own corruption.

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
          link
          fedilink
          1210 months ago

          Considering that twice-impeached, multiple-felony-indicted Trump is leading in the primary polls, I don’t think they care about their own corruption.

        • AngrilyEatingMuffins
          link
          fedilink
          110 months ago

          It also works to help obfuscate Democratic corruption as it’s nowhere near as bad and when pointed out is immediately compared to the much worse Republican corruption, which in turn pushes the envelope (full of cash) forwards even more. It sucks.

    • @MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      410 months ago

      There’s a reason dollar amounts are seldom mentioned in conservative Hunter Biden tabloid articles. Otherwise simple math would reveal the comparative and objective scale of potential foreign interest.