Was Gov. J.B. Pritzker Really Kicked Out Of His Family As Donald Trump Claims?

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Donald Trump once took a shady dig at Governor J.B. Pritzker, which managed to be both ironic and untrue at the same time. Speaking to reporters in August 2025, Trump took aim at the Governor of Illinois by claiming, "Pritzker is incompetent. His family threw him out of the business," (via X, formerly known as Twitter). However, the Democrat was never cut off from his family's multi-billion-dollar empire. Rather, he simply chose to forge his own path after they were involved in some high-profile drama. According to the New York Times, in 2001, J.B.'s then-18-year-old cousin Liesel Pritzker sued the family, alleging that her relatives had cheated her and her brother, Matthew Pritzker, out of a billion dollars. 

Vanity Fair reports that the bitter feud began when Jay Pritzker, the man who held the reins of their family business, passed away in 1999. In the years before his death, Jay had outlined a succession plan for the empire and informed his relatives that he did not want them to dilute their generations-long business simply to line their own pockets. Despite that, in 2001, 11 of Jay's family members quietly decided to take apart their conglomerate over the next decade so they could walk away with $1.4 billion each. 

In Liesel's complaint, she alleged that she was never made aware of this secret business deal. Even worse, her family also allegedly drained her and Matthew's billion-dollar trust funds. Although Liesl sought to get the $1 billion back plus another $5 billion in punitive damages, the court ultimately awarded her and Matthew just $900 million, per the New York Times. Once the dust settled, J.B. set out on his own path.

In 2011, the Chicago Tribune confirmed that the Pritzkers had successfully dismantled and divided their $19 billion business empire. In the aftermath, several family members decided to try their hand at different ventures. As for J.B. Pritzker, the governor told the Columbus CEO in November 2013 that he had partnered up with his brother, Anthony Pritzker, to invest the money they had made through their family fortune. The Democrat's older sibling offered some further insight into their decision, sharing, "We could spend the next 10 years working with family to break up the business. Or we could spend the next 10 years building our own business." So, it ultimately does not seem like the Illinois governor was booted from his family's business after all. 

In stark contrast, in Mary L. Trump's 2020 book, "Too Much and Never Enough," she posited that her grandfather, Fred Trump Sr., initially didn't see Donald Trump as a worthy successor to their own business empire. According to Mary, Fred Sr. had long primed her father, Fred Trump Jr., to succeed him instead. However, when Fred Jr. lost interest in the business, the patriarch had no other recourse except for betting on Donald.

"Fred [Sr.] could no longer separate himself from his son's brutal ineptitude; the father had no choice but to stay invested," she wrote, referring to the real estate mogul and future president. Additionally, Donald's snarky comment about J.B. seems even more ironic considering how many Trump family members have been embroiled in messy feuds. In fact, even Donald Trump Jr. refused to speak to his father for a whole year.