Jeanie Buss Calls the Buss Family's 17.8% Lakers Sale Vote Void

The dispute over the Los Angeles Lakers minority stake turns on a 2017 trust revision, a court ruling on control, and the NBA rule that a governor must own at least 15%.

Jeanie Buss, the governor of the Los Angeles Lakers, has told her brothers' attorneys that any vote to sell the Buss family's remaining 17.8% stake in the franchise is void, according to the Los Angeles Times. Her attorney sent the letter after ESPN reported on Monday, August 17, 2026, that the six Buss siblings had voted to sell their shares to Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner. Her attorney also demanded that Joey and Jesse Buss retract statements that the family is selling the stake.

The argument is about trust mechanics, not sentiment. The Times reports that the letter says the sale cannot be completed without the approval of the other trustees, and names them as Jeanie Buss and her younger siblings Janie and Joey.

The trust was revised in 2017, after legal fights between Jeanie Buss and her older brothers Johnny and Jim, the Times reports. As quoted by the Times, the revised trust stipulated that co-trustees “would take all actions reasonably available to them, including voting the trust's shares to ensure that [Jeanie Buss] is elected as the controlling owner of the Lakers on an annual basis during [her] lifetime.”

The letter, citing a 2017 court ruling on Jeanie Buss's role, puts it this way in the passage published by the Times:

“The co-trustees are bound to vote the Los Angeles Lakers, Inc. shares to ensure that the minimum 15% ownership requirement is maintained in order to ensure that Jeanie Buss may remain controlling owner. Any attempt by the co-trustees to do otherwise and any attempt to aid or abet the co-trustees as such would constitute a breach of trust, breach of fiduciary duty and be in contempt of court.”

The 15% figure is not decorative. Under the rule described by the Times, governors must own at least a 15% stake, so a sale of the family's 17.8% would leave Jeanie Buss ineligible to serve on the NBA board of governors — a seat she was to hold for at least five years after Mark Walter's purchase of the team was approved. Any transaction also requires approval by that same board of governors. The Times account does not include a comment from the NBA league office on approval timing.

What the family said

ESPN reported receiving a statement attributed to the Buss Family Trust, which the Times quotes: “We have decided as a family to sell the remaining Buss Family Trust shares to the Bob Iger group as part of the ongoing transaction. We love the Lakers, Laker fans and will continue to support Los Angeles; but it is time to use this opportunity to move on and exit gracefully while we still can.” ESPN did not report a price for the shares, according to the Times.

The larger deal underneath it

Iger, the longtime Disney chief executive, and Kushner, a venture capitalist and co-founder of Thrive Capital, agreed in August 2026 to buy Walter's controlling stake at a $12.5-billion valuation, the Times reports. Walter had bought the team for $10 billion. How Iger and Kushner will finance the purchase is unclear, per the Times.

The family has owned the Lakers since 1979, when Jerry Buss bought the franchise, the Forum and the Los Angeles Kings for $67.5 million. Jerry Buss died in 2013, and his six children took over. Joey Buss, the alternate governor and vice president of research and development, and Jesse Buss, the assistant general manager, were fired by the new owners last November.