The Buss family no longer owns any part of the Los Angeles Lakers. The family sold its remaining 17.8 percent stake to new majority owners Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, ending a 46-year run that began when Jerry Buss paid $67.5 million to Jack Kent Cooke in May 1979 for a deal that netted him the Lakers, the NHL's L.A. Kings, the Forum arena in Inglewood and more.
Jeanie Buss, who served as the team's governor since Jerry Buss died in 2013, is out with the sale. She was the last Buss standing after driving the earlier sale of majority control to Mark Walter at a $10 billion valuation, which closed in late October. The Kushner-Iger transaction takes the final Buss equity off the table entirely.
The path to this exit was not clean. Within three weeks of Walter's majority sale closing — on the morning of Nov. 20 — Joe McCormack, the Lakers' senior vice president of finance and chief financial officer, began sending text messages to Buss family members. Jesse Buss, a co-owner and the team's assistant general manager, received McCormack's text at 8:45 a.m. PT: "Good morning, Jesse. I need to talk with you today about several organizational changes that will affect you. Please let me know when you have time. Thank you, Joe."
Jesse texted back within a minute. One minute after that, his brother Joey called. McCormack had sent Joey a similar message and then called to tell him directly: he was fired immediately, and so was Jesse. Joey held the title of vice president of research and development and was also a co-owner. Brothers Jim and Johnny, who held Lakers administrative roles, were also out. Sister Janie, 62 and near retirement, was fired as well, though she asked to be allowed to resign instead. Her request was denied — she was out, with pay through the end of the calendar year.
"Please, let me resign," Janie told team officials. It didn't happen. She told reporters she felt disappointed and disrespected, "like a crumpled-up piece of paper thrown into the trash."
The Lakers were 11-4 at the time of the firings, 15 games into the season and playing well. The timing struck family members as abrupt. A team official described the sequence bluntly: "She fired everyone." Jim, Joey and Jesse Buss declined to comment.
Janie Buss put a sharper point on it. "I don't think my dad would be happy with the way things just went down," she said.
The firings were the operational conclusion of what sources close to the family describe as a decade of dysfunction that began the moment Jerry Buss died. His stated dream was to leave the franchise to all six of his children — generational wealth tied together by a business empire. What followed instead, according to current and former Lakers staffers with direct knowledge, was sibling infighting, attempted coups, subterfuge and deep familial distrust. Questions remain among some family members about whether the Walter sale was consistent with the terms of the family trust. There are also unresolved questions about whether one sibling directed financial benefits toward allies and friends at the expense of other family members.
Jerry Buss built the Lakers into the most popular and valuable family-owned sports enterprise in the world. The $10 billion valuation on the Walter deal — nearly 150 times the $67.5 million he paid in 1979 — reflects that. The franchise he assembled now passes fully into the hands of Kushner and Iger, two figures with reach into finance, media and entertainment. Bob Iger spent nearly two decades running The Walt Disney Company. Josh Kushner founded Thrive Capital, one of the more active venture firms of the past decade.
Jeanie was the architect of the transition. She drove the Walter deal, remained as governor through the majority sale and was the only Buss still connected to the team after her siblings were let go in November. Now she exits too, completing the family's full departure from a franchise their father bought for $67.5 million and which sold, in pieces, at a valuation of $10 billion.
The Buss siblings who lost their front-office roles in November never got the chance to fight their way back in. The final sale removes any remaining leverage they might have held as minority owners. The family trust questions and the financial grievances some members have raised are now matters for courts or private negotiation — not the Lakers' front office.
Jerry Buss wanted his children to own the Lakers together. Instead, the franchise outlasted the family. The final chapter ended not with a championship celebration but with a text message at 8:45 in the morning and a family that never found a way to stay together.
