Iran names Mojtaba Khamenei as its new supreme leader.
Anadolu | Anadolu | fake images
The United States achieved a quick victory when its first strikes against Iran killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader for nearly 37 years.
But news that the country had named Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as his successor, along with Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, sent oil prices soaring above $120 a barrel on Monday, their highest levels since 2022.
“The Iranians are showing defiance by electing Khamenei’s son,” Michael Herzog, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, told CNBC on Tuesday. He added that it showed there was “continuity and the guy will probably be vindictive.”
US President Donald Trump expressed his “disappointment” at the election of the new supreme leader, telling Fox News: “I don’t think I can live in peace.”
The country’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told CNBC on Monday that the country would unite around Mojtaba Khomeini when asked about schisms in the country’s leadership.
The 56-year-old inherits the job of leading a country of more than 90 million people in a war that has engulfed the Middle East.
Here are five things you should know about him.
He’s tougher than his father.
Mojtaba Khomeini is more connected to the Islamic Republic’s political and security establishment than his father.
Born in the religious city of Mashhad, he was just 10 years old when his father, a major figure in the revolution alongside the country’s first ayatollah, Ruhollah Khomeini, overthrew the ruling shah and established the Islamic Republic in 1979.
The son joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s most elite military institution, in the late 1980s, serving in the final years of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, a period that shaped his ties with Iran’s security elite.
After the war, Mojtaba Khamenei studied under prominent clerics in Qom. Despite years in the system, he does not hold a traditional religious rank.
He strengthened his connections with Iran’s clerical establishment and consolidated his position within conservative and hardline political networks through his marriage to Zahra Haddad Adel, daughter of a prominent conservative politician.
For decades, Mojtaba Khomeini operated quietly in his father’s office, cultivating influence throughout the IRGC. Through his decades-long entrenchment within Iran’s institutions, according to many stronger than that of his father in his early years of rule, he has shaped his reputation as a tougher figure.
Mojtaba Khamenei has been identified as one of the leaders who oversaw the 2009 crackdown on the Green Movement, when security forces brutally cracked down on protesters opposing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being declared the winner of the election, the largest demonstrations to that point since the 1979 revolution.
He has close ties to the IRGC.
Mojtaba Khamenei has maintained close ties with the IRGC over the years.
The IRGC is seen as a fierce defender of the Islamic Republic and was formed by Iran’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, shortly after the 1979 Revolution. His successor further entrenched it in the country’s system. It has extensive intelligence capabilities, commercial networks and almost 200,000 employees.
His involvement in the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq War is instrumental to his rise and allowed him to forge close relationships with members of the Guard and their internal networks. Their wartime ties later evolved into a central power base within the security establishment.
Mojtaba Khamenei acted as a key figure within his father’s office. Coordinated directly with IRGC commanders and intelligence units, managing sensitive political and security files.
Without the support of the IRGC, Mojtaba Khamenei could not have risen to succeed his father.
The airstrikes killed much of his family.
Along with his father, Mojtaba Khamenei’s wife, son and mother were killed in airstrikes on February 28, according to an Iranian government statement.
“You can imagine that this is not someone who is going to be in any kind of conciliatory mood,” Jasmine El-Gamal, former Middle East adviser for the US Department of Defense and now CEO of Averos Strategies, told CNBC.
“The two sides are still quite far apart and that’s why I say we’re going to continue to see further escalation from a military perspective in the coming days,” El-Gamal added.
He had never held public office before.
A poster showing an image of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is shown on March 4, 2026 in Tehran, Iran.
Majid Saeedi | fake images
In 2005, reformers accused him of working with religious leaders and the IRGC to secure the election of Ahmadinejad, the conservative candidate, as president. He faced similar claims in 2009.
A reformist candidate running for election at the time, Mahdi Karroubi, wrote a letter to Ali Khameini, then the ayatollah, saying that his son had worked to support one of the candidates. According to an excerpt published by PBS, Karroubi said in the letter that Ali Khameini had said of his son: “He is his own man, not just my son.”
In 2024, when Iran’s Assembly of Experts met to discuss Ali Khamenei’s successor, the then-supreme leader said his son should be excluded from consideration, the New York Times reported.
He reportedly has an international real estate empire.
Despite being a picture of religious piety and simplicity in Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei owns a real estate empire from the Middle East to Europe worth hundreds of millions, according to a year-long investigation by Bloomberg and published in January.
His investments span more than £100 million (about $134 million) and include luxury homes on The Bishops Avenue in London, more commonly known as “Billionaire’s Row,” according to the Bloomberg report.
Other properties include a villa in the famous Emirates Hills, also called “Dubai’s Beverly Hills”, as well as high-end European hotels from Frankfurt to Mallorca.
Many of the assets are not in its own name, but are held through a network of brokers, offshore companies and business partners, Bloomberg reported.
