Jeanie Buss calls her siblings’ vote to sell ‘void’ and accuses them of a ‘cloak and dagger’ campaign, as the $12.5 billion Lakers sale nears signing

The $12.5 billion sale of the Los Angeles Lakers is close to the signing stage, and the fight over the last piece of the Buss family’s ownership has turned more bitter. In a reply filed Wednesday, Oct. 28, in Los Angeles Superior Court, Jeanie Buss accused five of her siblings of a “cloak and dagger” campaign to push her out as the team’s governor, asked the court to remove two of them as trustees of the family trust and argued that their vote to sell the family’s remaining shares is void.

The filing landed in the same week that Mark Walter and Josh Kushner agreed on every remaining term of the sale. That timing matters. Once Walter signs and formally notifies the Buss family, the siblings’ right to sell alongside him becomes live, and the question of whether Jeanie can stop them moves from theory to practice. A hearing is set for Dec. 8.

What is at stake

When Walter bought control of the team from the Buss family at a $10 billion valuation in 2025, the family trust kept 17.8% of the Lakers. That is just above the 15% the NBA requires a governor’s family to hold, and it is the reason Jeanie Buss is still the team’s governor. She also has a side agreement with Walter that keeps her in the role for at least five years.

The trust also kept go-along rights, sometimes called tag-along rights, which let it sell its shares on the same terms if Walter sells. In August, Johnny, Jim, Janie, Joey and Jesse Buss voted 5-0 to use those rights and sell the family’s remaining stake to the group led by Kushner and former Disney chief executive Bob Iger. At $12.5 billion, 17.8% is worth about $2.2 billion. Split six ways, that is about $371 million for each of Jerry Buss’s children, Jeanie included.

If the whole stake is sold, the family drops below 15% and Jeanie Buss loses the governor’s seat her father left her. Iger has said the plan was for her to stay on as governor, but added that “if things change, they’ll change.”

Jerry Buss’s stepfather refused to adopt him. Decades later, buying the Los Angeles Lakers meant he had to own the Chrysler Building for about five minutes. It all started with $83.33 a month.

In the video below, his daughter Jeanie tells the story.

Buss grew up poor during the… pic.twitter.com/48z0NSn523

— Darvin (@darvinxq) October 21, 2026

Jeanie’s argument

Jeanie Buss’s case rests on a 2017 court order. That year, after she fired her brother Jim as head of basketball operations, Jim and Johnny Buss tried to remove her from the team’s board. The dispute ended with a settlement and an order that, according to her filings, requires the two co-trustees, Janie and Joey Buss, to always vote in a way that keeps her as the controlling owner. Her lawyers, led by Adam Streisand, say the August vote broke that order.

The new filing adds a narrower contract argument. Her lawyers say the go-along right covers less than all of the trust’s shares, that no notice of the go-along right or of a separate “put right” was ever given, and that Kushner and Iger have not made an offer to buy the trust’s shares at all. “Consent to a hypothetical, partial sale is not the full and final sale required to trigger termination under Section 2.4(c),” the filing says. “Thus, the Purported Resolution is void on its face.”

She is asking the court to remove Joey and Janie Buss as co-trustees for breach of fiduciary duty, hold them in contempt, find Jim, Johnny and Jesse Buss liable for aiding and abetting a violation of the 2017 order, and order them to pay her legal costs.

The filing is also personal. “The conflicts that ensued after Dr. Buss’s death were sadly inevitable, and no doubt intensified given that Dr. Buss chose his daughter over four sons to be his successor,” her lawyers wrote. They described the siblings’ August vote and the resolutions that became public before she saw them as “cloak and dagger, backroom ‘votes’ and ‘resolutions'” meant “to force Jeanie’s hand, cry victim and again smear her in the media.” The siblings, the filing says, are running “their own false flag operation.”

The siblings’ side

The five siblings filed a formal opposition on Oct. 7, calling her petition “legally and factually baseless.” They argue that they are using voting rights the trust gives them as beneficiaries. “There is deep irony in [Jeanie] alleging that it is [Joey and Janie] who are putting their self-interests first,” an Oct. 16 filing said. “The entire petition is predicated on the notion that rights expressly granted to the beneficiaries by [the trust] should be subjugated to [Jeanie’s] personal interest in remaining controlling owner.”

Jeanie Buss’s reply turned that around: “It drips with irony that Respondents’ thesis is that Jeanie is self-interested. Jeanie’s ‘self-interest’ has been to lead as her father and mother directed in their trusts.”

People close to the family have said the two sides have held settlement talks. How far those talks have gone is not clear.

Why the signing changes things

Walter and Kushner met on Thursday, Oct. 29, at Walter’s home in Florida and settled the last details of the sale. They are expected to sign soon, and Kushner has told Walter he has the money to close. Ramona Shelburne reported that the go-along rights can only be used after Walter formally tells the family he has signed a deal to sell. Until then, Jeanie Buss’s point that there is no real offer for the trust’s shares has some force. After the signing, the siblings will have a concrete deal to point to.

The signing also starts the league’s formal review. The NBA will look at the financing and the ownership structure, and at least three-quarters of the Board of Governors must approve the sale. Walter’s own purchase took about four and a half months from agreement to approval. The Walter-Kushner deal does not depend on the Buss family selling, so the court fight is about the family’s share and the governor’s seat, not about whether the sale happens.

Three ways it can end

The first is a settlement before Dec. 8. A deal could let the siblings cash out while finding Jeanie Buss a role under the new owners, which Iger’s comments suggest the buyers would accept. The second is a court ruling for Jeanie Buss, which would keep the family’s 17.8% in place for now and leave her as governor alongside Kushner as the controlling owner. The third is a ruling for the siblings, which would let the full stake be sold, push the family below 15% and end the Buss family’s 47 years in charge of the Lakers.

Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979 as part of a $67.5 million deal that also included the Forum and the NHL’s Kings. For the full timeline, see how the Lakers went from $67.5 million to $12.5 billion. In Portland, Sen. Ron Wyden has taken another ownership fight that has reached the league office, but the Lakers’ fight will be decided in a Los Angeles courtroom unless the family settles first.