The real estate mogul-turned-diplomat, whose latest disclosure was released in April, is 15% richer than he was a year ago thanks to his crypto venture with the Trump family and his stake in Musk’s SpaceX. It’s been an eventful year for Steve Witkoff. The 69-year-old New York real estate developer tapped by President Donald Trump as his Middle East envoy in November 2024 hit the ground running in 2025 with a ceasefire in Gaza, following it up with efforts to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine and then a nuclear deal with Iran. Last June, he became “special envoy for peace missions,” reflecting his wider sphere of responsibility. It’s been a mixed bag on the diplomatic front: Despite achieving a new ceasefire in Gaza last October, Russia and Ukraine are no closer to a peace agreement than they were under Joe Biden, and the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, launching a war that’s still ongoing.  But on the personal front, it’s been a very lucrative year. While he was jetting around the world from Miami and Moscow to Israel and Oman, his fortune jumped 15% to $2.3 billion, up from an estimated $2 billion when he started working for the government. That was largely thanks to his investments in crypto firm World Liberty Financial, which his sons Zach and Alex cofounded with Trump’s sons Don Jr., Eric and Barron. Forbes estimates that the Witkoffs pocketed $130 million from sales of $WLFI crypto tokens. He and his sons also sold about half of their stake in World Liberty to Aryam Investment, a firm backed by Emirati royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, for an estimated $48 million (post-tax), in a transaction first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Representatives for Witkoff did not respond to requests for comment on his net worth. That sale left him with an estimated 6.4% stake in the company’s stablecoin business, which issues USD1—a digital version of the U.S. dollar backed by Treasurys. Forbes values that stake at about $60 million based on comparable issuers of stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies backed by real-world assets that hold a constant value. He and his sons also retain about 375 million World Liberty Financial tokens, which Forbes discounts while they remain locked up, worth about $42 million. Altogether, Witkoff’s crypto investments added about $280 million to his net worth. His crypto success follows in the footsteps of Trump, whose crypto assets now make up about a third of his $6.2 billion net worth. But Witkoff also benefited from a well-timed investment he first made back in October 2022. That’s when he put $100 million into Elon Musk’s privatization of Twitter, now known as X. That gave him an estimated 0.3% stake in the company, which was valued at $31 billion net of debt at the time. Since then, X has merged with Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI in March 2025 and then with his rocket maker SpaceX in February, valuing the combined company at $1.25 trillion. Forbes estimates that Witkoff’s stake was diluted to a tiny 0.017%, now worth around $210 million. That means Witkoff has already doubled his investment—and it could grow even more valuable as SpaceX is set to go public later this year. Musk is reportedly targeting a valuation of more than $2 trillion in SpaceX’s upcoming IPO, a 60% premium to its current valuation. Read the full story on Forbes: By Giacomo Tognini https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2026/04/04/how-peace-envoy-steve-witkoff-got-richer-thanks-to-trump-and-elon-musk/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices