Verdict: unverified. On Wednesday, October 22, 2026, Vanity Fair published an excerpt from Princes and Thieves, a forthcoming book by the journalist Matthew Cole, under the headline "Jared Kushner's Hacked Phone Revealed His Secret Negotiations, Including More Than $700 Million in Transfers." Within hours Jared Kushner posted that the book contains "outrageous and categorically false allegations." The excerpt was published without bank statements, wire records or account numbers. Nothing in it has been independently confirmed by another news organization, a court, or a government.
What the excerpt claims
Cole's account, as quoted by Vanity Fair, opens this way: "In late spring 2020, a source I knew to be reliable called me with a story. The Dutch government had hacked into Jared Kushner's phone and monitored him as he accessed a Dubai-based bank account."
The excerpt goes on to allege that Dutch military intelligence, the MIVD, recruited a Russian GRU hacker in 2017 and through him reached a server holding screenshots from Kushner's iPhone, and that by 2018 the Dutch could watch the phone directly. It alleges that the money in the Dubai account, described as hundreds of millions of dollars, came through a bank in Azerbaijan, and that the funds originated with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the UAE's Mohamed bin Zayed. It alleges that Kushner moved money from that account to people the book describes as a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man, and that by spring 2018 roughly $1 billion had been moved to Israel through Azerbaijan for Kushner. The headline figure, more than $700 million in transfers, is Vanity Fair's.
Those are the claims. They rest, by the author's own framing, on a source "I knew to be reliable" and on intelligence material the reader cannot see.
What Kushner says
Kushner's statement, posted to X the same afternoon, reads in part: "This excerpt is from a book containing outrageous and categorically false allegations. We denied every claim on the record, yet the author provided not a single shred of verifiable evidence to substantiate them. No bank statements, wire transfer records, account numbers." His lawyer, quoted in coverage of the excerpt, said Kushner broke no laws and that "there are no accounts and never were."
What is confirmed
Three things, and only three. The book exists: Simon & Schuster lists Princes and Thieves for publication on October 27, 2026. Vanity Fair published the excerpt under that headline on October 22. And Kushner denied it on the record the same day.
Everything else, the hack, the accounts, the Azerbaijani routing, the transfers and the names of the people said to have received money, is an allegation from a book that has not yet been released, sourced to people who are not named. Reporters with their own Gulf sourcing have already said parts of the excerpt do not add up. That does not make it false. It makes it unproven.
What would change the verdict
Records. A bank statement, a wire confirmation, an account number tied to a named institution, a Dutch official on the record, or a second outlet reporting the same facts from its own sources. Until one of those exists, this is a claim about money, not a money trail. Burn the Playbook will update this story if any of that appears.