Kushner scraps Trump Tower Belgrade after officials indicted

Serbian students and Belgrade residents hold a banner reading "We won't give up." as they gather for a protest in Belgrade on November 11, 2025, against a plan by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President, to demolish the former Yugoslav army headquarters and build a luxury hotel on the site. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on December 16, 2025 that a planned hotel development in Belgrade that has sparked protests would not go ahead, after an investment firm linked to US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner pulled out of the project. Photo by Andrej ISAKOVIC / AFP via Getty Images

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Jared Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, dropped its plans for a hotel in Serbia, after tensions around the project culminated in the indictment of a government official who helped clear a path for its development.

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The decision caps months of controversy over Affinity’s bid to construct a Trump-branded luxury hotel on the ruins of a former government building in Belgrade. Serbia’s minister of culture, Nikola Selakovic, and three others were indicted Monday, according to a statement by the public prosecutor’s office.

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“Our vision for the Belgrade project was to offer an elegant, uplifting design that honored Serbia’s progress,” an Affinity spokesperson said in a separate statement. “Because meaningful projects should unite rather than divide, and out of respect for the people of Serbia and the City of Belgrade, we are withdrawing our application and stepping aside at this time.”

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Kushner, who’s married to U.S. President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, is emerging in some of the most high-profile diplomatic negotiations and private business deals of his father-in-law’s second term.

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An adviser to Trump in his first term, Kushner said he wouldn’t rejoin his administration if he were reelected. But the 44-year-old has joined diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff in peace negotiations over the wars in Gaza and Ukraine as his firm participates in major deals in the private sphere.

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Affinity is backing Paramount Skydance Corp.’s US$108 billion hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros., and the private equity firm was also part of the US$55 billion buyout of video game company Electronic Arts.

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Before its involvement in those deals, Affinity had been working on Trump Tower Belgrade, an estimated US$500 million development that would have been built on a site of historical significance: the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense, which was destroyed in a 1999 NATO bombing that helped to drive Serb forces out of Kosovo.

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The ruins of the building had been untouched for years in Serbia’s capital.

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Waves of protesters took to the streets of Belgrade against the project, which had been backed by President Aleksandar Vucic. That put strain on Vucic, who’s also grappled with mass protests for over a year related to corruption, so far withstanding pressure to call a snap election or resign.

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“We’ve lost an exceptional investment of at least 750 million euros,” (US$882 million) Vucic told reporters in Belgrade on Tuesday, denouncing the criminal proceedings against Selakovic and the other officials as politically-motivated. He accused the prosecutors of siding with opposition activists, seeking to “destroy Serbia and leave it without investors.”

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“The damage inflicted to Serbia is enormous,” Vucic added, pledging judicial reforms that would restore control over the prosecutor’s office that now “answers only to itself.” The president said he would then “personally” initiate criminal cases against prosecutors he claims have gone rogue.