“Completely Insane”: Kushner Slams Explosive Book Claims of Hacked Phone and Secret Gulf Millions

A book excerpt alleges Dutch intelligence watched Kushner’s phone and found secret UAE accounts. Here is what it claims and how he replied

PGurus Newsdesk

October 23, 2026

Russian server, Dutch spies, Gulf millions?

Former US ambassador David Friedman, named in the book, calls the allegations about him “100% false.”

Jared Kushner has gone on the offensive against a book excerpt that paints him as the centre of a secret Gulf money web. He called its claims “completely insane” and insisted none of it ever happened.

The excerpt appeared in Vanity Fair on Thursday. It comes from Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East, a forthcoming book by Matthew Cole, a former Intercept reporter.

Cole’s account starts with a phone. He alleges that Dutch intelligence found screenshots of Kushner’s iPhone on a server run by Russia’s military intelligence, then exploited a flaw in the device and watched his screen from early 2018. According to the book, those images showed Kushner logging into a UAE bank account that had received hundreds of millions of dollars through Azerbaijan. Vanity Fair put the figure at more than $700 million in transfers.

The claims escalate from there. Cole alleges that the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the UAE placed at least $2 billion into at least two accounts for Kushner during Donald Trump’s first term. He further claims UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed arranged one transfer and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged depositing the money in Israel. Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman is alleged to have carried messages between the two men. Friedman rejects this outright, saying he knows nothing about it and calling the allegations about him “100% false.”

Kushner’s camp has answered with equal force. His lawyer says Kushner broke no laws and has no link to any UAE account, adding that there were never any such accounts. Kushner himself used X to call the author’s claims categorically false and “outrageous fabrications.”

The excerpt lands on ground that is already contested. After leaving the White House, Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, received a $2 billion investment from a Saudi sovereign wealth fund led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a deal ethics watchdogs have questioned. That investment is separate from the book’s allegations, which remain unproven.

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