As Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, conducted delicate cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas this year, his son Alex was on another mission. He was quietly soliciting billions of dollars from some of the same governments whose representatives were involved in peace talks with his father.
Alex Witkoff pitched Qatar, a mediator in the Gaza talks and a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, on a planned investment fund focused on commercial real estate projects in the United States, according to a spokeswoman for Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.
He later wooed prospective investors by telling them that he had already secured pledges of billions of dollars from government-affiliated funds in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, according to people familiar with his pitches who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The real estate fund had the potential to yield hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue for the Witkoff Group, which Steve Witkoff founded in 1997. He remains a partial owner of the company, after selling a portion of his stake this year.
The contemplated investment fund, as well as Alex Witkoff’s fund-raising outreach to Gulf nations, represents another startling example of the Witkoff family apparently trying to profit off its patriarch’s proximity to the president. Steve Witkoff and his other son, Zach, already face accusations of pushing ethical boundaries through their cryptocurrency venture with the Trump family, which also has been doing deals in the Middle East.
The New York Times reviewed documents about the fund prepared by the Witkoff Group and spoke with people familiar with the pitch to investors. Alex Witkoff was fielding questions about the fund from potential investors as recently as a month ago. But shortly after The Times asked about the fund, Anna LaPorte, a Witkoff Group spokeswoman, said the plans, which she described as “preliminary,” had been shelved. “They are not moving forward with that fund,” she said.
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The post Where Mideast Envoy Pitched Peace, His Son Pitched Investors appeared first on New York Times.
