Firm Backed by Trump Sons Scores 'Risky' US Contract

Newser ^ | By John Johnson with Newser.AI Posted Nov 9, 2026 8:36 AM CST

[Responsibility2nd]

A ProPublica investigation is casting a suspicious eye on a lucrative government contract awarded to a small company to monitor Ebola in Africa. The $40 million contract to XpresTest stands out for two reasons, according to the story: The company has zero experience working in Africa, and President Trump's two eldest sons invested in the firm just months before the contract was awarded. XpresTest, a biosecurity subsidiary of airport spa operator XWELL, has experience monitoring COVID-19 at airports but no track record working with Ebola or in Africa. Even the company's CEO is leery of the work in the Democratic Republic of Congo: "This is a risky contract," Ezra Ernst tells the outlet. "I'm not sure we can do it."

A spokesperson for Donald Jr. and Eric Trump says the pair are passive investors in the fund that pumped $30 million into XpresTest and had no prior knowledge of the government contract. Still, the "contracts are the latest example of the president's family benefiting financially from his administration's actions," reads the story. The stakes are particularly high, and not in a financial sense: The US hopes to prevent the fast-spreading Ebola outbreak in Africa from reaching the US. "There are countless organizations in the world that have decades of experience doing this work," says Jeremy Konyndyk, who helped guide the US response to a 2014 outbreak in Africa. "I have to wonder why the hell they're not going with someone who has actually done this before." Read the full story.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government
KEYWORDS: xprestest

[Responsibility2nd]

This stuff was not OK when Hunter and Joe Biden was doing it. It's not OK now.

[tlozo]

Jared Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, has received billions of dollars in capital primarily from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and Gulf investors:

Saudi Arabia: The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, invested $2 billion into Affinity Partners shortly after Kushner left the White House in 2021.

Qatar: The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and other Qatari entities have provided substantial capital, including an additional $1.5 billion injection.

United Arab Emirates: Sovereign wealth and investment entities from the UAE (such as Lunate) have also contributed capital to the fund.

Congressional investigations and reports indicate that roughly 99% of Affinity Partners' capital has come from foreign national and sovereign sources in the Gulf region.