The five Buss siblings who voted to sell the family’s shares of the Lakers filed their formal opposition to team governor Jeanie Buss’ attempts to block the sale on Wednesday, calling Jeanie’s petition “legally and factually baseless” in a statement provided to The Times.
“While discussions among the siblings continue, their focus remains on facilitating the proposed transaction and the Trust’s participation in it, while ensuring that all beneficiaries, including Jeanie, are treated equally,” Jimmy, Johnny, Janie, Joey and Jesse Buss said in the statement.
“Today’s filing is a necessary step to protect those interests and ensure the transaction proceeds on schedule.”
The five siblings voted in August to include the family’s 17.82% of the team in the sale from Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter to Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger. Jeanie immediately opposed her siblings’ vote, saying that the transaction would breach the family trust that states she and her co-trustees Janie and Joey must take reasonably available actions to maintain Jeanie’s role as the controlling governor of the team “on an annual basis during [her] lifetime.”
If the Buss Family Trust sells its remaining shares, Jeanie would be ineligible to serve on the board of governors because the NBA requires governors to own at least 15% of a franchise. Although the Buss family ended its more than 40 years of majority ownership of the team in 2025 by selling to Walter at a then-record $10-billion valuation, Jeanie was to remain the controlling governor for at least five years.
Jeanie and her attorneys filed a petition in L.A. Superior Court about two weeks after her siblings’ vote in which she argued their plan was void.
The siblings’ formal opposition claims Jeanie is attempting to prevent the sale “in order to protect her own personal interests” and her actions “constitute a breach of her fiduciary duties as a trustee.” The siblings believe that with five votes to sell, they have the right to proceed with their plan to sell the shares and distribute the proceeds because they have a two-thirds majority of the living children, as outlined in the trust.
With the latest sale from Walter to Kushner and Iger valued at $12.5 billion, a 17.82% share would be worth approximately $2.2 billion for the Buss siblings.
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