Dr. Jerry Buss paid $67.5 million for the Lakers in 1979 and ran the franchise until his death in 2013, when control passed to his six children through a family trust that named his eldest daughter, Jeanie, as the team's governor. That arrangement held for more than a decade, and it survived one attempted overthrow in 2017. It is now being tested a second time — this time over money, not boardroom seats.
In June 2025, the Buss family agreed in principle to hand majority control to billionaire Mark Walter, and the NBA formally signed off on that $10 billion deal on October 30, 2025, with the family retaining a minority stake and Jeanie staying on as governor. Walter's ownership run barely lasted a season. By last month, Bloomberg had reported that federal prosecutors and the SEC were examining possible insurance fraud tied to Guggenheim Partners and TWG Global, the businesses Walter runs, and the Wall Street Journal had separately reported that a 2024 stroke had raised internal questions about his ability to keep leading them.
