5 Things To Know About Mojtaba Khamenei

Mojtaba Khamenei, a mid-ranking Shia cleric and son of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has been named the Islamic Republic’s new supreme leader. “Khamenei became young again,” Iranian state media declared, portraying the succession of Mojtaba as a continuation rather than a break. Despite rumors that Mojtaba had been injured in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes, the Assembly of Experts installed him as the Islamic Republic’s highest authority, reportedly under pressure from the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This dynastic transfer of power sits uneasily with a revolution that once denounced hereditary rule. Here are five things to know about the third supreme leader:

1. Mojtaba prefers to operate behind the scenes.

Unlike his father, or other clerical elites, Mojtaba, 56, has never given a sermon in public, run for public office, or held a major clerical leadership post. That said, Mojtaba is not a departure from the system but its purest product, embodying repression, corruption, and ideological militancy. As supreme leader, he will rely heavily on the IRGC, tightening the bond between the barracks and the pulpit.

Under Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba functioned as an unelected power broker within Iran’s most influential establishments, wielding influence through his father’s office. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned him in 2019 for “representing the Supreme Leader in an official capacity” despite holding no formal government office. He worked in tandem with the chief of staff of the supreme leader’s office, Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, and others.

2. Mojtaba manipulated Iranian elections towards hardliners.

Mojtaba emerged politically in the 1990s as the Islamic Republic struggled with the consequences of competitive elections where the so-called “reformist” candidates performed well. As reformists gained momentum under Mohammad Khatami, hardline clerical and security factions began building counter-networks to contain the movement. Mojtaba became one of the most important of those unelected organizers. Over time he developed a reputation as a backroom political broker hostile to detente with the West and deeply suspicious of any opening that might weaken the revolutionary state.

In the mid-2000s, he was widely associated with the rise of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose 2005 presidential victory marked a decisive turn toward a harder line in government. In 2009, reformist cleric Mahdi Karroubi directly objected to what he alleged was Mojtaba’s role in supporting Ahmadinejad.

3. Mojtaba helped forge the regime’s repression apparatus.

Mojtaba is not merely associated with conservative politics; he is closely tied to the institutions that enforce ideological conformity by force. He has direct links to the Basij, a religious militia, in advancing “oppressive domestic objectives.” His name became notorious after the 2009 Green Movement, when the Basij and IRGC crushed protests triggered by a disputed presidential election.

This record is one reason he inspires such visceral hostility among many Iranians. In fact, residents of Tehran chanted “death to Mojtaba” from their homes amid American and Israeli airstrikes targeting the regime. They view him as a man whose power grew wherever and whenever the regime moved from persuasion to surveillance to intimidation to beatings to arrests, and, finally, to killing.

4. Mojtaba has deep ties with Iran’s security elites.

After finishing high school, Mojtaba served in the Habib Battalion, an elite IRGC unit composed of young, ideologically committed fighters, during the last year of the Iran-Iraq War. The unit connected him to men who later moved into the regime’s most sensitive security posts. Among them were Hossein Taeb, who became commander of the Basij and later head of the IRGC Intelligence Organization; Hossein Nejat, who went on to command Sarallah Headquarters, the IRGC formation responsible for security in Tehran; and Hassan Mohaghegh, another Habib alumnus who rose inside IRGC intelligence structures.

Mojtaba’s institutional political support has grown through external family ties, having married into one of the regime’s most important hardline families: his wife, Zahra Haddad-Adel (who was killed in the same airstrike as his father), was the daughter of Gholamali Haddad-Adel, the former parliament speaker and a central conservative powerbroker.

5. Mojtaba built vast foreign wealth despite sanctions.

Mojtaba has also moonlighted as a real-estate mogul outside of Iran. Recent investigations tied his network to more than $138 million in London property alone, including 11 mansions on Bishop Avenue — London’s “Billionaires Row” — and two apartments overlooking Israel’s UK embassy.

Many of these acquisitions were made through an intermediary. Sanctioned businessman Ali Aliakbar Ansari described a $462 million European portfolio spanning hotels, resorts, and shopping centers. The United Kingdom sanctioned Ansari in October 2025 with an asset freeze, travel ban, and director disqualification for financially supporting the IRGC.

Janatan Sayeh is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he focuses on Iranian domestic affairs and the Islamic Republic’s regional malign influence. Samuel Ben-Ur is a research analyst at FDD focused on global Christian persecution. For more analysis from the authors and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow Janatan on X @JanatanSayeh. Follow FDD on X @FDD and @FDD_Iran. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.