Business
'I want you to be my agent.' What to know about Trump's ties with Hollywood power player Ari Emanuel
Last month, President-elect Donald Trump entered a sold-out Madison Square Garden to attend the mixed martial arts extravaganza UFC 309. Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass” played and the crowd erupted in cheers, chanting “USA! USA!”
The incoming 47th president was flanked by UFC president Dana White and a cortege of Trumpworld insiders tapped for the new administration, including Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.
Also present was Hollywood mogul Ari Emanuel, head of the Endeavor Group and the CEO of UFC’s parent company, TKO.
Inside the arena, Trump approached the Octagon-side “promoters table” where White and UFC commentator Joe Rogan sit and where he was seen briefly chatting with Emanuel.
Their meeting at the UFC bout was the second time the pair had spoken since Trump’s 2024 presidential run, said a person close to Emanuel who was not authorized to comment. Emanuel, Trump’s former agent, called him last summer after he was shot at a campaign rally to ask how he was doing, and Trump appreciated the call, said the source.
As Hollywood begins to grapple with how to navigate Trumpworld 2.0, few are better positioned to navigate the new administration than Emanuel.
The brash power player has staunch Democratic bona fides: He has hosted fundraisers for the party and donated to a number of its candidates over the years. During this presidential cycle he gave nearly $1 million to Kamala Harris’ PAC and campaign. And his brother Rahm was President Obama’s first chief of staff, later the mayor of Chicago and Biden’s ambassador to Japan.
Nonetheless, Ari Emanuel has cultivated multifaceted ties to Trump and many of his associates over the years, among them Elon Musk, UFC’s White and WWE’s Vince McMahon. One of William Morris Endeavor’s literary agents represented Vice President-elect JD Vance when he sold his 2016 bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy” (Emanuel interviewed Vance at an employee book club series in 2018 in Cleveland).
Emanuel, who has publicly castigated Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and blasted President Biden and his aides for not dropping out of the presidential race earlier, says that he will not be shy about voicing his concerns to Trump, telling The Times, “If I really disagree with something that I think he would do, I will definitely pick up the phone.”
‘The King of Hollywood’
Back in 2010, Emanuel became Trump’s agent, just months after the Hollywood power broker engineered a stunning takeover of the famed William Morris Agency. The New York real estate developer turned reality TV star was hosting “Celebrity Apprentice,” and he called Emanuel as he played golf during his firm’s annual off-site in Palm Springs.
“Ari, this is Donald Trump. Did you make that Conan deal? I want you to be my agent,” Trump told him, according to someone close to Emanuel.
The NBC show was flagging in the ratings — despite Trump insisting otherwise — and he wanted what he always craved: a better deal.
Endeavor had extracted some major concessions from NBC after the network axed Conan O’Brien as host of “The Tonight Show,” including a $32.5-million payout.
The deal caught Trump’s attention and he wanted the man he’d taken to calling “the King of Hollywood” representing him.
Five years later, Trump announced his first run for president. After he called Mexicans “rapists” who brought drugs and crime into the country, NBC cut ties with him. Trump bought out NBC’s interest in the Miss Universe Organization and then sold Miss Universe to Emanuel’s Endeavor for an undisclosed sum. In November 2016, Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States.
Although Emanuel has not represented Trump since the latter announced his first candidacy, he was photographed meeting Trump at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., after the 2016 election. Emanuel has downplayed the visit to those around him.
Three years later, Emanuel’s name surfaced in a trove of some 100 documents from Trump’s transition that was leaked to the political news site Axios, indicating he had been vetted for an unspecified role in the administration. A spokesperson for Endeavor declined to comment at the time.
Trump, who has called Emanuel “a very good friend of mine,” said at the start of his first administration: “Even though he’s not political, he’s political. He gets it.”
Elon Musk: The Trump whisperer
Elon Musk has increasingly become one of Trump’s most influential advisors.
(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
Over the years, Emanuel’s relationship with Elon Musk took shape, and its contours deepened as the uber-agent transformed Endeavor from a talent agency into a global sports and entertainment powerhouse. In March 2021, a month before Endeavor went public on the New York Stock Exchange, Musk was tapped to join the company’s board (he resigned in 2022).
That same year, Musk was among a clutch of intimates (along with Brian Grazer and Larry David) who attended Emanuel’s 60th birthday party at Ivy on the Shore in Santa Monica. In the summer of 2022, when Emanuel married fashion designer Sarah Staudinger, Musk joined a select group of A-listers (Mark Wahlberg, David Zaslav) invited to their wedding in St. Tropez, France. Months later Musk was photographed yachting off the coast of Greece with the newlyweds.
Behind the scenes, Emanuel has played a quiet role in some of Musk’s notable businesses.
When Musk attempted to back out of his $44-billion takeover of Twitter in 2022, causing a rift with its board, Emanuel reached out to Egon Durban, a Twitter board member and co-CEO of private equity firm Silver Lake, then Endeavor’s largest shareholder.
Emanuel urged the company to “find a solution” to the legal battle ahead of the scheduled trial. Musk and the board ultimately sealed the deal and the billionaire took the social platform private, later renaming it X.
As Emanuel played peace broker between Musk and the Twitter board, he sent Musk a three-paragraph proposal on the encrypted text platform Signal offering to run Twitter with Endeavor for a fee of $100 million, saying he would cut costs, create a better culture and manage relationships with advertisers and marketers.
Emanuel’s overture, unearthed in Walter Isaacson’s flattering biography of the Tesla mogul, never moved forward.
Jared Birchall, Musk’s right-hand man, called it “the most insulting, demeaning, insane message.”
The scuttled offer apparently did little to ruffle feathers. In January 2023, Axios revealed that Endeavor had acquired a small stake in X. As for Emanuel, he has been spotted around town driving a glossy black Cybertruck.
Dana White: Trump’s strongman champion
UFC President Dana White has long championed Trump.
(Getty Images)
In 2016, the same year that Endeavor acquired the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) for more than $4 billion, its president, Dana White, a bombastic former mixed martial arts (MMA) manager, took the stage at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and gave a fulsome endorsement of the GOP presidential nominee. “I’ve been in the fight business my whole life,” he said, and Trump, he noted, was a “fighter.”
Trump had thrown White a lifeline years ago. In 2000, New Jersey legalized MMA and Trump reached out to White offering to hold fights at his now-defunct Trump Taj Mahal casino and hotel in Atlantic City. Trump himself showed up for events, raising UFC’s profile.
Since then, White has been one of Trump’s staunchest supporters outside of politics. He has invited Trump to UFC events even as Trump faced a spate of criminal, civil and other legal challenges.
As White became known as MAGA’s frontman, he and Emanuel forged a successful business partnership turning the UFC into the world’s largest MMA promotion.
“Now with Ari, he and I end up being perfect partners together. It’s really cool,” White told the website MMA Fighting. “You think of a guy like Ari, if you watch ‘Entourage’ — Ari Emanuel has no ego when he deals in business and he’s a f—king killer and I love that about him too.”
Emanuel has heaped praise on White too, crediting him with helping to save Endeavor’s sprawling empire during the pandemic.
White implemented an aggressive plan to continue to hold fight events on Yas Island in the United Arab Emirates, dubbed “Fight Island.”
The Emanuel-White alliance reached its apex last fall when Endeavor officially merged UFC and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) into TKO Group Holdings, a publicly traded $21.4-billion fighting sports and entertainment giant.
Vince and Linda McMahon: Trump’s fight squad
For years before he acquired TKO, Ari Emanuel represented WWE led by Vince McMahon, left, with his wife, Linda McMahon, who was Trump’s Small Business Administration head.
(Jessica Hill / Associated Press)
Emanuel has deep connections with another figure who has close ties to Trump: Vince McMahon.
Last April on CNBC, Emanuel sat next to McMahon and announced the UFC-WWE merger, insisting that McMahon was a driving force and paramount to the deal.
McMahon was named executive chairman of the newly created TKO Group Holdings as a condition of the deal, according to SEC filings.
McMahon boasted that the new company was a “live sports and entertainment powerhouse with a collective fan base of more than a billion people.”
Emanuel had a long-standing relationship with McMahon. They met in the late 1990s, soon after Emanuel launched his own talent agency. He convinced McMahon to let Endeavor represent the WWE for endorsement opportunities and media rights.
By then, McMahon had already developed close ties to Trump.
During the 1980s, Trump became a WWE fixture and the two men grew friendly. Trump hosted WrestleMania extravaganzas at his hotels and made numerous appearances at matches. In 2013, Trump was inducted into the WWE’s Hall of Fame.
In 2007 and ’09, WWE made payments of $4 million and $1 million, respectively, to the Trump Foundation, according to the foundation’s tax filings. The foundation was dissolved by court order in 2018 after the New York attorney general found that it had illegally used charitable funds for political purposes.
McMahon exited TKO in January after former WWE employee Janel Grant, sued the company, McMahon and the former head of talent relations alleging sexual assault, trafficking and emotional abuse. This followed previously disclosed revelations that McMahon had paid millions in hush money to multiple women to quash allegations of sexual misconduct between 2006 and 2022. McMahon has denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
The allegations triggered investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice, raising questions as to how or if the Trump DOJ will handle the government probes.
Emanuel has periodically stayed in touch with McMahon, who is no longer involved in the running of TKO and WWE.
The McMahon family appears to be in good standing with Trump.
In 2017, Trump named McMahon’s estranged wife, Linda, to run the Small Business Administration. Two years later, she resigned to become chairwoman of America First Action, a pro-Trump super-PAC; more recently, she co-headed his transition team. Last month, Trump nominated McMahon to serve in his cabinet as his education secretary.
The iPic dine-in movie theater chain has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and intends to pursue a sale of its assets, citing the difficult post-pandemic theatrical market.
The Boca Raton, Fla.-based company has 13 locations across the U.S., including in Pasadena and Westwood, according to a Feb. 25 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Florida, West Palm Beach division.
As part of the bankruptcy process, the Pasadena and Westwood theaters will be permanently closed, according to WARN Act notices filed with the state of California’s Employment Development Department.
The company came to its conclusion after “exploring a range of possible alternatives,” iPic Chief Executive Patrick Quinn said in a statement.
“We are committed to continuing our business operations with minimal impact throughout the process and will endeavor to serve our customers with the high standard of care they have come to expect from us,” he said.
The company will keep its current management to maintain day-to-day operations while it goes through the bankruptcy process, iPic said in the statement. The last day of employment for workers in its Pasadena and Westwood locations is April 28, according to a state WARN Act notice. The chain has 1,300 full- and part-time employees, with 193 workers in California.
The theatrical business, including the exhibition industry, still has not recovered from the pandemic’s effect on consumer behavior. Last year, overall box office revenue in the U.S. and Canada totaled about $8.8 billion, up just 1.6% compared with 2024. Even more troubling is that industry revenue in 2025 was down 22.1% compared with pre-pandemic 2019’s totals.
IPic noted those trends in its bankruptcy filing, describing the changes in consumer behavior as “lasting” and blaming the rise of streaming for “fundamentally” altering the movie theater business.
“These industry shifts have directly reduced box office revenues and related ancillary revenues, including food and beverage sales,” the company stated in its bankruptcy filing.
IPic also attributed its decision to rising rents and labor costs.
The company estimated it owed about $141,000 in taxes and about $2.7 million in total unsecured claims. The company’s assets were valued at about $155.3 million, the majority of which coming from theater equipment and furniture. Its liabilities totaled $113.9 million.
The chain had previously filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019.
In an expansion of its business of processing pharmaceuticals in Earth’s orbit, Varda Space Industries is renting a large El Segundo plant where toy manufacturer Mattel used to design Hot Wheels and Barbie dolls.
The plant in El Segundo’s aerospace corridor will be an extension of Varda Space Industries’ headquarters in a much smaller building on nearby Aviation Boulevard.
Varda will occupy a 205,443-square-foot industrial and office campus at 2031 E. Mariposa Ave., which will give it additional capacity to manufacture spacecraft at scale, the company said.
Originally built in the 1940s as an aircraft facility, the complex has a history as part of aerospace and defense industries that have long shaped the South Bay and is near a host of major defense and space contractors. It is also close to Los Angeles Air Force Base, headquarters to the Space Systems Command.
Workers test AstroForge’s Odin asteroid probe, which was lost in space after launch this year.
(Varda Space Industries)
Varda is one of a new generation of aerospace startups that have flourished in Southern California and the South Bay over the last several years, particularly in El Segundo, often with ties to SpaceX.
Elon Musk’s company, founded in 2002 in El Segundo, has revolutionized the industry with reusable rockets that have radically lowered the cost of lifting payloads into space. Though it has moved its headquarters to Texas, SpaceX retains large-scale operations in Hawthorne.
Varda co-founder and Chief Executive Will Bruey is a former SpaceX avionics engineer, and the company’s spacecraft are launched on SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rockets from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.
Varda makes automated labs that look like cylindrical desktop speakers, which it sends into orbit in capsules and satellite platforms it also builds. There, in microgravity, the miniature labs grow molecular crystals that are purer than those produced in Earth’s gravity for use in pharmaceuticals.
It has contracts with drug companies and also the military, which tests technology at hypersonic speeds as the capsules return to Earth.
Its fifth capsule was launched in November and returned to Earth in late January; its next mission is set in the coming weeks. Varda has more than 10 missions scheduled on Falcon 9s through 2028.
For the last several decades, the Mariposa Avenue property served as the research and development center for Mattel Toys. El Segundo has also long been a center for the toy industry as companies like to set up shop in the shadow of Mattel.
The Mattel facility “has always been an exceptional property with a legacy tied to aerospace innovation, and leasing to Varda Space Industries feels like a natural continuation of that story,” said Michael Woods, a partner at GPI Cos., which owns the property.
“We are proud to support a company that is genuinely pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and are excited to watch Varda grow and thrive here in El Segundo,” Woods said.
As one of the country’s most active hubs of aerospace and defense innovation, El Segundo has seen its industrial property vacancy fall to 3.4% on demand from space companies, government contractors and technology startups, real estate brokerage CBRE said.
Successful startups often have to leave the neighborhood when they want to expand, real estate broker Bob Haley of CBRE said. The 9-acre Mattel facility was big enough to keep Varda in the city.
Last year, Varda subleased about 55,000 square feet of lab space from alternative protein company Beyond Meat at 888 Douglas St. in El Segundo, which it started moving into in June.
Varda will get the keys to its new building in December and spend four to eight months building production and assembly facilities as it ramps up operations. By the end of next year, it expects to have constructed 10 more spacecraft.
In the future, Varda could consolidate offices there, given its size. Currently, though, the plan is to retain all properties, creating a campus of three buildings within a mile of one another that are served by the company’s transportation services, Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Barr said.
“We already have Varda-branded shuttles running up and down Aviation Boulevard,” he said.
Ships near the Strait of Hormuz before and after attacks began
Every day, around 80 oil and gas tankers typically pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway off Iran’s southern coast that carries a fifth of the world’s oil and a significant amount of natural gas.
On Monday, just two oil and gas tankers appear to have crossed the strait, according to a New York Times analysis of shipping activity from Kpler, an industry data firm. Since then, one tanker passed through.
“It’s a de facto closure,” said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer of Pickering Energy Partners, a Houston financial services firm. “You’ve got a significant number of vessels on either side of the strait but no one is willing to go through.”
Tankers have been staying away from Hormuz since the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran that began on Saturday. A prolonged conflict could ripple broadly across the global economy, threatening the energy supplies of countries halfway around the world and stoking inflation.
International oil prices have climbed 12 percent since the fighting began, trading Tuesday around $81 a barrel, and natural gas prices have surged in Europe and in Asia.
A senior Iranian military official threatened on Monday to “set on fire” any ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. Vessels in the region have already come under attack. Several oil and gas facilities have also been struck or affected by nearby shelling, though the damage did not initially appear to be catastrophic.
Where ships and energy facilities have been damaged
A fire broke out Tuesday at a major energy hub in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, from the falling debris of a downed drone, the authorities said. On Monday, Qatar halted production of liquefied natural gas, or fuel that has been cooled so that it can be transported on ships, after attacks on its facilities.
The sharp reduction in tanker traffic is reducing the supply of oil and gas to world markets, pushing up prices for both commodities. And the longer that ships stay away from the Strait of Hormuz, the less oil and gas get out to the world, which could raise prices even more.
Shipping companies have paused their tankers to protect their crew and cargo, and because insurance companies are charging significantly more to cover vessels in the conflict area.
On Tuesday, President Trump said that “if necessary,” the U.S. Navy would begin escorting tankers through the strait. He also said a U.S. government agency would begin offering “political risk insurance” to shipping lines in the area.
In addition to tankers, other large vessels regularly go through the strait, including car carriers and container ships. In normal conditions, nearly 160 make the trip each day.
Some ships in the region turn off the devices that broadcast their positions, while others transmit false locations — making it hard to give a full picture of the traffic in the strait.
The Shiva is a small oil tanker that has repeatedly faked its location, according to TankerTrackers.com, which tracks global oil shipments. It is suspected of carrying sanctioned Iranian oil, according to Kpler. The Shiva was one of the two tankers that crossed the strait on Monday.
The oil and gas that typically move through the strait come from big producing countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and United Arab Emirates, and are exported around the world.
Where tankers moving through the Strait have traveled
In 2024, more than 80 percent of the oil and gas transported through the Strait of Hormuz went to Asia. China, India, Japan and South Korea were the top importers, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Countries have energy stockpiles that could last them into the coming months, but a continued shutdown of the strait could damage their economies.
Several big disruptions have roiled supply chains in recent years, but the tanker standstill in the Strait of Hormuz could have an outsize impact.
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