For nearly five decades, the Buss family had a stake in nearly every chapter of Lakers history. Now, that era is ending after a stunning chain of events that turned a $10 billion sale into a family rift and another record-breaking ownership change.
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Jeanie had backed the family’s $10 billion sale to Mark Walter in 2025 as the right move for the Lakers’ long-term future. But the deal was followed by a bitter family rift, the removal of five of her siblings from their Lakers roles and, less than a year later, Walter’s decision to sell the team again.
“Jeanie told [her siblings] this sale to [Walter] was in the best interest of the long term, but it ended up being an embarrassing one, and it was time to move on cleanly,” a person with knowledge of the process told ESPN.
The fallout from the Walter deal had already fractured the family. ESPN reported that some of the Buss siblings felt pressured into approving the $10 billion sale and later felt misled about how the transaction unfolded.
The family split soon became impossible to ignore. On November 20, 2025, Joey, Jesse, Jim, Johnny and Janie Buss were removed from their front-office and administrative roles, while Jeanie remained as governor under the agreement that had guaranteed her position through 2030.
Janie Buss later told ESPN, “Please, let me resign… I don’t think my dad would be happy with the way things just went down. Not at all… I felt disappointed and disrespected, like a crumpled-up piece of paper thrown into the trash.”
For the Buss siblings, the fallout went beyond losing their jobs. Jesse Buss later said he and Joey had been “pushed to the sidelines for well over two years” and accused Jeanie of keeping herself in place while her siblings were fired.
In June 2025, the Buss family agreed to sell majority control of the Lakers to Walter at a $10 billion valuation. Jeanie had argued that family ownership could no longer keep pace financially under the NBA’s collective bargaining rules and luxury-tax system, while her brothers Joey and Jesse challenged that view.
Walter held controlling ownership for less than 10 months before agreeing to sell to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner at a $12.5 billion valuation, creating another record-setting transaction for the franchise.
Then came the moment that finally broke the family’s remaining ownership tie to the Lakers. On August 10, CFO Joe McCormack called an emergency meeting of the six Buss siblings for the following day, proposing to dissolve the existing family trust and lock their remaining equity into a new four-year structure. The problem was that Walter was already negotiating his $12.5 billion sale to Iger and Kushner, and the siblings did not learn about that deal until it became public on August 12.
“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,” the Buss family said in a statement.
The move also ends Jeanie’s tenure as Lakers governor. The NBA requires a team governor to hold at least a 15% direct or beneficial stake, and the Buss family’s remaining 17.8% ownership will fall to zero once the transaction closes. That means Jeanie will no longer meet the league’s ownership requirement, despite the Walter deal having guaranteed her role through 2030.
The family’s decision came after at least five of the six siblings voted to exercise their tag-along rights, according to ESPN. The provision allowed them to sell their remaining stake on the same financial terms as Walter’s transaction with the new ownership group, giving the family a clean exit after 47 years.
The ending does not erase what the Buss family built. Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979, and the franchise won 11 NBA championships during the family’s 47-year ownership run. The Lakers also recorded 2,289 regular-season wins from the start of the 1979-80 season through August 2026, the most by any NBA franchise over that span. Now, after nearly five decades, the Buss family will have no ownership stake left in the Lakers.