Jared Kushner named senior adviser to Trump

President-elect Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will serve in the White House as senior adviser, the transition team announced Monday.

Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, became one of the president-elect’s top aides and confidantes during the campaign. Now he appears poised to play a similar role in the next White House.

“Jared has been a tremendous asset and trusted advisor throughout the campaign and transition and I am proud to have him in a key leadership role in my administration,” Trump said in a statement. “He has been incredibly successful, in both business and now politics. He will be an invaluable member of my team as I set and execute an ambitious agenda, putting the American people first.”

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Contrary to earlier reports, it appears that Ivanka Trump will not take an official position in the White House, focusing instead on relocating the couple’s young family to Washington.

Kushner will reportedly forgo a salary to avoid running afoul of nepotism laws, according to Bloomberg. He will also divest from assets to avoid running afoul of ethics rules.

“It is an honor to serve our country,” Kushner said in the transition team statement. “I am energized by the shared passion of the President-elect and the American people and I am humbled by the opportunity to join this very talented team.”

Just after Trump’s election victory, NBC News reported that the president-elect wanted Kushner to sit in on the daily presidential briefings. A transition official denied at the time that Trump had requested his children receive top security clearances.

During the campaign, Kushner reportedly had an active role on the Trump team.

In an interview with Forbes after Trump won, Kushner detailed how he ran the campaign’s data operation by focusing on advertising through social media instead of the traditional approach of television and online.

“I called some of my friends from Silicon Valley, some of the best digital marketers in the world, and asked how you scale this stuff,” Kushner told the magazine. “They gave me their subcontractors.”

Trump has bragged that he spent less money than Hillary Clinton’s campaign. According to a CNBC analysis, Clinton’s campaign committee spent $564.9 million by late November to Trump’s $321.9 million.

Kushner said in the Forbes interview that the campaign “tried to do things very cheaply.”

“We played Moneyball, asking ourselves which states will get the best ROI [return on investment] for the electoral vote,” he said. “I asked, How can we get Trump’s message to that consumer for the least amount of cost?” 

This story was first posted at 7:30 a.m. and has been updated.