Robert Kraft

Robert Hearth Kenneth Kraft (born June 5, 1941) is an American businessman. He is the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Kraft Group, a diversified holding company with assets in paper and packaging, sports and entertainment, real estate development, and a private equity portfolio. Since 1994, Kraft has owned the New England Patriots of the National Football League (NFL). He also owns the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer (MLS), which he founded in 1996. In 2017, he founded the Boston Uprising, an Overwatch League esports team that competed from 2017 until it disbanded in January 2024. According to Forbes, he had an estimated net worth of $11.1 billion as of July 2024.

Kraft was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of Sarah Bryna (Webber) and Harry Kraft, a dress manufacturer in Boston's Chinatown. His mother was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia; his father was a lay leader at Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline and wanted his son to become a rabbi. The Krafts were a Modern Orthodox Jewish family. Robert attended the Edward Devotion School and graduated from Brookline High School. As a child, he sold newspapers outside Braves Field in Boston. During high school, Kraft was unable to participate in most sports because it interfered with his after-school Hebrew studies and observance of the Sabbath.

Kraft attended Columbia University on an academic scholarship and he served as class president. He played tennis and safety on the school's freshman and lightweight football teams. During that time, Kraft lived in Carman Hall. He met Myra Hiatt at a delicatessen in Boston's Back Bay in 1962, and they married in June 1963. Kraft graduated from Columbia that year, and in 1965 he received an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Kraft began his professional career with the Rand-Whitney Group, a Worcester-based packaging company run by his father-in-law, Jacob Hiatt. In 1968, he gained control of the company through a leveraged buyout. Kraft remains the chairman. In 1972, he founded International Forest Products, a trader of physical paper commodities. The two companies are the largest privately held paper and packaging companies in the United States. Kraft has said he started the company out of a hunch that the increase in international communications and transportation would lead to an expansion of global trade in the late 20th century.

International Forest Products became a top 100 US exporter/importer in 1997 and in 2001 was ranked 7th on the Journal of Commerce's list in that category. In 1991, Kraft said of the business, "We do things for a number of companies, including Avon, Kodak, cosmetics companies, candies, toys." The company produced both corrugated and folding cartons, which he said were "used to package everything from the Patriot missile, to mints, to Estee Lauder, Indiana Glass, and Polaroid." Kraft acquired interests in other areas, and ultimately formed the Kraft Group as an umbrella for them in 1998.

Kraft was an investor in New England Television Corp., which gained control of the channel 7 license for Boston in 1982, and he became a director of the board in 1983, after the newly licensed station, WNEV-TV, signed on, replacing the former WNAC-TV. In 1986, Kraft was named president of the corporation. In 1991, he exercised his option to sell his shares for an estimated $25 million.

In 1974, Kraft, Harold Bayne, Herbert Hoffman, Bob Mades, and Paul Slater purchased the Boston Lobsters of World TeamTennis (WTT). The group spent heavily to lure a number of top players, including Martina Navratilova, and the Lobsters became one of the best teams in WTT. After the 1978 season, Kraft announced that the franchise would fold. The league itself folded soon thereafter.

After the Lobsters folded, Kraft was also mentioned as a bidder for the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Celtics.

Kraft has been a New England Patriots fan since their American Football League days and had been a season ticket holder since 1971, when the team moved to Schaefer Stadium. In 1985, he bought a 10-year option on Foxboro Raceway, a horse track adjacent to the stadium, and the purchase prevented Patriots owner Billy Sullivan from holding non-Patriot events at the stadium while races were being held. Kraft took advantage of the fact that the Sullivans owned the stadium but not the surrounding land; it was the beginning of a quest to buy the stadium and the Patriots. Sullivan's family was reeling from a series of bad investments, principally The Jackson Five 1984 Victory Tour, for which they had to pledge Sullivan Stadium as collateral. Those problems ultimately forced Sullivan to sell controlling interest of the team in 1988, while the stadium lapsed into bankruptcy.

In 1988, Kraft outbid several competitors to buy the stadium out of bankruptcy court from Sullivan for $22 million. The stadium was considered outdated and nearly worthless, but the purchase included the stadium's lease to the Patriots, which ran through 2001. Kraft bid on the Patriots franchise as well, but he lost to Victor Kiam. Sullivan and Kiam then tried to move the team to Jacksonville, but Kraft refused to let them break the lease. Kiam was nearly brought down by bad investments of his own and was forced to sell the Patriots to James Orthwein in 1992.

In 1994, Orthwein offered Kraft $75 million to buy out the remainder of the team's lease at Foxboro Stadium so he could move it to St. Louis, but Kraft declined. Orthwein was no longer interested in operating the team in New England and decided to sell it. But the operating covenant required that any potential buyer negotiate with Kraft. With this in mind, Kraft launched what amounted to a hostile takeover, offering $172 million for an outright purchase. Future St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke offered more money ($200 million) with the intent to move to St. Louis. But Orthwein would have been saddled with all relocation expenses and any legal expenses from breaking the lease. When Kraft made known that he would go to court to enforce the covenant and force Kroenke to stay in Foxboro, Orthwein had little choice but to accept Kraft's offer, the highest ever made for an NFL team at the time.

Myra and Robert Kraft have donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity, including education, child- and women-related issues, healthcare, youth sports and American and Israeli causes. Among the institutions the Krafts have supported are Columbia University, Harvard Business School, Brandeis University, the College of the Holy Cross, Boston College, Tufts University, Rice University, Yeshiva University, the Belmont Hill School, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston.

In 1989, the Krafts launched the Passport to Israel Fund, in collaboration with Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (CJP), to help parents send their teenage children to Israel. One its projects is supporting American Football Israel, including Kraft Family Stadium in Jerusalem and the Kraft Family Israel Football League. In 1990, Kraft, his wife, and his father-in-law funded a joint professorship between Brandeis University and the College of the Holy Cross, forming the Kraft-Hiatt endowed chairs in comparative religion—the first inter-religious endowed chairs in the United States.

In 2000, Kraft donated $11.5 million to construct the Columbia/Barnard Hillel, which is made of the white stone used in Jerusalem. In 2007, after a $5 million payment to Columbia's intercollegiate athletics program, the playing field at Columbia's Lawrence A. Wien Stadium at the Baker Field Athletics Complex was named Robert K. Kraft Field.

In 2011, the Krafts pledged $20 million to Partners HealthCare to launch the Kraft Family National Center for Leadership and Training in Community Health, an initiative designed to improve access to quality healthcare at New England community health centers. The Krafts supported the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

After the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, Kraft announced he would match up to $100,000 in donations made for the victims through the New England Patriots Charitable Foundation.

In June 1963, Kraft married Myra Nathalie Hiatt, a 1964 graduate of Brandeis University and the daughter of the late Worcester, Massachusetts, businessman and philanthropist Jacob Hiatt. She died on July 20, 2011, of ovarian cancer, aged 68. The Krafts were members of Temple Emanuel in Newton, Massachusetts. A patch bearing Kraft's initials (MHK) appeared on the Patriots' uniform jersey throughout the 2011 season. The couple had four sons: Jonathan Kraft, Daniel Kraft, Joshua Kraft, and David Kraft.

In June 2012, Kraft began dating actress Ricki Noel Lander. In July 2012, Kraft assisted Lander in creating an audition video for a role in The Internship. Lander and Kraft broke up in 2018.

The Intercept reported in 2026 that, according to tax records dating back to 2006, Kraft has donated to various pro-Israel organizations: Kraft Family Foundation had donated $196,000 to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces and $123,000 to other organizations directly serving soldiers and veterans of the Israeli military. The Kraft Group limited liability company has given $3 million to the United Democracy Project super political action committee (super PAC) of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) since 2022. Kraft's foundation has also given $63,500 to the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), an organization that has denied Israel’s genocide in Gaza and has organized pressure campaigns against those it considers "anti-Israel". In 2011–12, it also gave approximately $50,000 to The Investigative Project on Terrorism. From 2008 to 2018, it gave $150,000 to the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI).

Kraft has also organized visits to Israel for NFL players, including Tom Brady.

In June 2019, Kraft received Israel's Genesis Prize. At the ceremony in Jerusalem, he pledged $20 million to establish Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (rebranded as Blue Square Alliance Against Hate), which he pledged would combat the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, saying that it "and other efforts to delegitimize and undermine the State of Israel are the most disconcerting times for the country I love so much". Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "Israel does not have a more loyal friend than Robert Kraft."

In April 2024, during the Gaza solidarity protests at Columbia University, Kraft stopped funding the university "over the treatment of Jewish students and faculty during pro-Palestinian protests at the campus", citing "virulent hate". According to Adam Saifer and Fahad Ahmad, Kraft is among "billionaire donors" who "have used their vast wealth—and the threat of withdrawing it—to demand a severe crackdown on student protesters expressing solidarity with Palestine" since October 2023.

Kraft led efforts to remove Macklemore from Ed Sheeran's 2026 Loop Tour after he said "free Palestine" onstage and performed "Hind's Hall", a song inspired by the Gaza solidarity protests at Columbia and the "Hinds Hall" occupation of Hamilton Hall, renamed by protesters in honor of Hind Rajab, a Palestinian girl in the Gaza Strip killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the Gaza war. Kraft called Sheeran to say he would not be allowed to perform at Gillette Stadium, which is owned by the Kraft Group, if Macklemore was not removed from the tour. Macklemore was subsequently dropped from the tour.

Six-time Super Bowl champion (as the owner of the Patriots: XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX, XLIX, LI, LIII)

John Jay Award from Columbia University (1987)

Alexander Hamilton Medal from Columbia University (2004)

Columbia University football field renamed Robert K. Kraft Field.

Honorary doctorate in humane letters (2015) from Yeshiva University.