The main Saudi sovereign wealth fund, controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, invested $2 billion in Jared Kushner's new private equity firm six months after Kushner left the White House, where he was a key defender of bin Salman, even though the Saudi fund's investment screening committee expressed serious misgivings, The New York Times reported Sunday night, citing internal documents. Kushner was a senior White House adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald Trump.
The screening committee's four members — current or former heads of Saudi Aramco, Dow Chemical, the Saudi Central Bank, and Saudi Industrial Development Fund — voted unanimously against investing in Kushner's fledging Affinity Fund, citing the "inexperience" of its management, an asset management fee that "seems excessive," and the fact that due diligence found the firm's operations "unsatisfactory in all aspects," the Times reports. "But days later the full board of the $620 billion Public Investment Fund" overruled the screening panel