Background and career
Thomas Joseph Barrack Jr. (born April 28, 1947) is an American diplomat, private equity real estate investor and the founder and retired chairman of Colony Capital, a publicly traded real estate investment trust. Following his U.S. Senate confirmation, Barrack has served as United States Ambassador to Turkey since May 2025. Barrack has for decades been a close friend of and fundraiser for U.S. President Donald Trump, representing him in television news appearances. He was senior advisor to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and served as the chairman of his Inaugural Committee. In Trump's second administration, Barrack serves as the United States Ambassador to Turkey, United States Special Envoy for Syria and the United States Special Envoy for Iraq.
Barrack's grandparents were Lebanese Christians who immigrated in 1900 to the United States from Zahlé. Barrack was raised in Culver City, California, where his father was a grocer and his mother was a secretary. In 1969, Barrack earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southern California (USC), where he participated on their varsity rugby team. He then attended the USC Gould School of Law, where he was an editor of the Southern California Law Review, before receiving a Juris Doctor from the University of San Diego School of Law in 1972.
Barrack's first job was at the law firm of Herbert W. Kalmbach, President Richard Nixon's personal lawyer. In 1972, the firm sent him to Saudi Arabia, where he soon became the squash partner of a Saudi prince. He then worked in the kingdom for the Fluor Corporation, and worked for Saudi princes. Shortly after, he helped open diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Haiti, then ruled by Jean-Claude Duvalier, at the request of investor Lonnie Dunn. In 1982, Barrack served as deputy undersecretary of the United States Department of the Interior under James G. Watt in the Reagan administration. The Secret Service would board its horses at Barrack's ranch when President Ronald Reagan was at his nearby Rancho del Cielo. Watt made his resignation announcement at Barrack's ranch. Barrack says he became disillusioned with government service after he was required to testify before a congressional committee due to a gift Barrack had paid to the purchaser of then-Attorney General Edwin Meese's house.
In 1987, Barrack was later a principal with the Robert M. Bass Group. In 1985, Barrack first dealt with Donald Trump when he sold Trump a one-fifth stake in the Alexander's department stores. In 1988, Trump agreed to pay Barrack $410 million for total ownership of the Plaza Hotel. He later lost both properties in bankruptcy. In 1990, Barrack founded Colony Capital, with initial investments by Bass and GE Capital, and later Eli Broad, Merrill Lynch, and Koo Chen-fu. Barrack achieved 50% profits in his first two years by focusing on distressed properties, including the federal Resolution Trust Corporation. He has invested some $200 million in Middle East real estate, $534 million in non-performing German real estate loans, and made a $24 million loan to photographer Annie Leibovitz. He also owned Neverland Ranch which was once the home of mega superstar Michael Jackson. Through Colony Capital, he runs a $25 billion portfolio of assets, from the Fairmont Raffles Hotels International hotel chain in Asia, the Aga Khan's former resort in Sardinia, Resorts International Holdings, One&Only Resorts, Atlantis, etc. Colony American Homes was criticized for treating tenants poorly during the Great Recession, raising rents, evicting people in large numbers and failing to maintain properties. Barrack has previously negotiated drilling rights with Mana Al Otaiba. In 2009, Barrack negotiated with Otaiba's son, Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba, the sale of a $41 million stake in the Raffles L'Ermitage hotel to the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. In 2010, Barrack bought $70 million of Jared Kushner's debt on 666 Fifth Avenue. Kushner later avoided bankruptcy when Barrack agreed to reduce his obligations after a request by Trump. As of September 2011, Barrack was the 833rd richest person in the world, and the 375th richest in the United States, with an estimated wealth of $1.1. billion USD. However, he was no longer a billionaire in 2014. In 2012, Barrack sold the Paris Saint-Germain F.C. to the Qatar Investment Authority. Barrack had to pay €22 million to settle tax charges related to the 2012 sale of his resort on Costa Smeralda to the Qatari sovereign wealth fund. In 2010, Barrack partnered with the Qatar Investment authority to purchase the film production company Miramax for $660 million. In 2016, Barrack sold Miramax to the Qatari beIN Media Group at a fourfold profit. In October 2017, Barrack's Colony Capital agreed to invest in The Weinstein Company to keep it afloat in light of the sexual misconduct allegations against the company's co-founder, Harvey Weinstein. The New York Times reported that the preliminary agreement with Weinstein fell apart and the acquisition broke down, in part because Colony Capital required the deal would not enrich Weinstein.
On June 3, 2016, Barrack's Colony Capital announced an all-stock three-way merger with two NorthStar affiliates to form Colony NorthStar, which would have managed $58 billion in assets and carried a pro-forma equity market capitalization of $7 billion and total capitalization of $17 billion. Management projected core FFO of $1.40–1.58 per share and targeted dividends of $1.08 per share for 2017, but new FINRA rules requiring clearer REIT fee disclosures undermined the firm’s fundraising efforts by revealing fee levels that deterred prospective clients. On March 1, 2018, Colony NorthStar reported core FFO of $1.16 per share (22% below guidance), cut its dividend by 60%, and wrote down its Investment Management division by $375 million, causing the stock to fall 23% to $6.00.
In 2017, Barrack sold a $70 million stake in One California Plaza to the Abu Dhabi crown prince's investment fund. During the first 18 months of the Trump administration, Colony NorthStar raised 24% of its $7 billion in investment from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Saudi Arabia. Barrack used Cayman Islands entities to invest pension fund money in distressed real estate and send money towards the Colony parent company, according to an organization chart that surfaced in the Paradise Papers documents leaked from the Appleby law firm Barrack is a trustee at the University of Southern California. He has also served on the board of directors of Accor, Kerzner International, First Republic Bank, Continental Airlines, Korea First Bank, and Megaworld Properties & Holdings. French president Nicolas Sarkozy awarded him France's Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.
