Poor Ivanka Can’t Build $1.4 Billion Island Resort in Peace

A demonstration against the resort in Tirana on June 3, 2026. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Look, Ivanka Trump gets it. These are scary and uncertain times. The First Daughter has been doing “a lot of reflection on how I want to live, how I think people are increasingly wanting to live.”

Her conclusion: We all want to hide away on some abandoned Mediterranean island that we discovered after jumping off a friend’s boat and swimming to shore. And now, Ivanka is working to “build something that’s a tangible manifestation of that” by constructing a $1.4 billion luxury hotel complex on an Albanian island.

Ivanka gushed about the 2.2-square-mile island of Sazan this week on the latest episode of David Senra’s podcast (episode title: “Ivanka Trump on Building an Authentic Life”). The First Daughter dreamily described how she and husband Jared Kushner initially found Sazan (“We swam to the island, we went for a hike, barefoot all the way up to the top,”) and have, over the course of several years, “developed the opportunity to help realize it’s potential and transform it.”

Ivanka said she toured the island earlier this year with several master architects and is excited to return to her “real-estate roots.” “You know, it’s not even a business for me, despite the scale of it,” she added. “For me, this is — it feels more like a challenge than anything else.”

Ivanka Trump announces that she and her husband, Jared Kushner, are building a massive off-the-grid private island in the middle of the Mediterranean.

The island spans 1,400 hectares and currently has no power.

They will be working with some of the world's greatest living… pic.twitter.com/0yJqr3nHSw — Shadow of Ezra (@ShadowofEzra) June 2, 2026

In case you have not been keeping up with Ivanka and Jared’s latest neighbor drama, in January 2025 the New York Times reported that the government of Albania had given Kushner’s private-equity company, Affinity Partners, preliminary approval to build a resort on Sazan. While this was just before Donald Trump’s second inauguration, both sides claimed that had nothing to do with it:

The approval by Albania’s Strategic Investment Committee — which is led by Prime Minister Edi Rama — gives Mr. Kushner and his business partners the right to move ahead with accelerated negotiations to build the luxury resort on a 111-acre section of the 2.2-square-mile island of Sazan that will be connected by ferry to the mainland.

Mr. Kushner and the Albanian government did not respond Wednesday to requests for comment. But when previously asked about this project, both have said that the evaluation is not being influenced by Mr. Kushner’s ties to Mr. Trump or any effort to try to seek favors from the U.S. government.

But earlier this week, Politico EU reported that Albanian anti-corruption officials have opened an investigation into legislative changes to the area’s protected status and ownership in 2024, which paved the way for the project’s approval.

Albanian prime minister Edi Rama denied in several interviews this week (including in a contentious appearance on CNN International) that the resort project threatens the protected environment, which Politico described as “a sensitive coastal wetland area home to flamingos, seals and sea turtle nesting sites.” The government has argued that the development would help the nation enter the high-end tourism market and bolster its push for European Union membership, per NPR.

Nevertheless, conservation groups alleged that the government had not been transparent about the project and raised concerns about the environmental impact.

Protests broke out on Sunday after developers put up barbed-wire-topped fencing around the site and moved in heavy machinery. They have been growing this week, with “thousands” taking to the streets of Tirana, some of them brandishing inflatable flamingos in a nod to feared environmental damage,” according to The Guardian. The demonstrations continued on Thursday, per the Washington Post:

The protests continued into a fifth day Thursday, with signs criticizing Trump and Kushner, and others targeting Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is a member of Trump’s Board of Peace. “No tourist paradise is built on destroyed lives,” one sign read. Another showed the Kushner-Trump couple walking a dog with Rama’s face plastered on.

… “Albania is not for sale,” said Sidorela Vatnikaj, an activist at the protest on Thursday. She said the demonstrators are aiming to “abolish the project that was not public” and “abolish this ideology when one autocrat can decide what he can do with our land and our rights.” She also wants the government to roll back laws that allow construction on protected land.

So this whole thing is turning out to be more of a “challenge” than Ivanka expected. And the poor thing can’t even de-stress by holing up in her very own five-star “eco-resort community” on the Mediterranean!

This piece has been updated with reporting on Thursday’s demonstrations.