Mojtaba Khamenei, who was named Iran’s new supreme leader over the weekend, shares a common trait with President Donald Trump: Both have amassed extensive global real estate empires.
The son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—who was killed in an airstrike at the start of the war—represents the Islamic Republic’s first hereditary transfer of power.
The younger Khamenei maintains close ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the regime’s decision to elevate him to the top position is seen as evidence that hard-liners are in control with little interest in reaching a deal to end the war.
But before the conflict, he mostly kept a low profile while accumulating assets around the world. A January Bloomberg investigation found Khamenei had avoided putting investments in his own name, yet their total value exceeded $138 million.
These assets include Swiss bank accounts and luxury properties. Among his holdings in several of London’s most exclusive neighborhoods is a house on “Billionaires’ Row.” Sources told Bloomberg Khamenei’s real estate empire also includes a villa in Dubai’s “Beverly Hills” district and upscale European hotels.
At the time, Khamenei did not respond to Bloomberg’s comment requests sent via Iran’s foreign ministry and embassies in the UAE and U.K. An intermediary reportedly handling Khamenei’s deals denied any personal or financial ties to him.
’s request for comment to the foreign ministry could not be delivered by email due to the country’s internet lockdown. Iran’s representative to the United Nations did not immediately respond to an inquiry.
Meanwhile, Forbes valued Trump’s net worth at $7.3 billion last year. His golf clubs and resorts alone totaled $1.3 billion, while his other real estate investments—such as office towers, hotels, and residential developments—were worth $1.2 billion.
His liquid and crypto assets were valued at $2.4 billion last year, and Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, was worth $2 billion. The market selloff since he launched his war on Iran has dented those holdings.
Khamenei’s overseas assets pale in comparison to Trump’s net worth, but now that he has taken over in Iran, he assumes a dominant role over the country’s economy.
The supreme leader heads the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, a state-owned conglomerate created after the seizure of thousands of properties in the wake of the Islamic Revolution. According to Bloomberg, it manages billions of dollars in assets, commercial holdings, and charities, operating across a wide range of sectors.
Similarly, Khamenei controls the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which began as a paramilitary force to ensure the regime’s political power but eventually developed its own diversified business empire. This includes core industrial sectors like oil and transportation, as well as banking, telecommunications, agriculture, medicine, and real estate.
The IRGC uses affiliates to engage in business activities. For example, the Khatam al-Anbiya engineering firm has built refineries, a railway line, a dam, and a natural gas pipeline. It also controls Tehran’s international airport.
Another pillar of the IRGC’s business empire is its network of “foundations” that essentially form semiprivate monopolies, though they started as organizations to advance religious and revolutionary goals.
“However, over time, wealth accumulation in the service of a wider range of ruling elite objectives, such as self-enrichment, political control, regime survival, and social engineering, became an end in itself,” the Clingendael think tank said in an October report. “What began as vehicles for social justice evolved into corporate-style conglomerates that were shielded from oversight and yet central to the power base of the revolutionary state.”