Iran's supreme leader, succeeding his father Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on February 28th 2026. Mojtaba is Ali Khamenei's second son. He bears a striking resemblance to his father and wears the same black turban, a symbol of continuing clerical rule. He lost his mother, wife, sister and child, as well as his father, in the same strike.
The Assembly of Experts, a body of 88 clerics, met in secret eight days after Ali Khamenei's death to anoint Mojtaba. Fearful of air strikes, the candidate was hidden from view; officials said he was injured, and rumours swirled about his death. Acolytes had to make do with kissing a cardboard cut-out of the new leader. Donald Trump said he was not happy with the choice and predicted a short tenure.
Mojtaba had never held office and lacked a public profile or religious credentials—he was a mid-ranking cleric, not an ayatollah, and clerics consider him a lightweight lacking the required qualifications of a grand ayatollah and supreme leader. Even some supporters of the regime resented the hereditary succession: they did not overthrow a monarchy in 1979 simply to install another one. Revolutionaries may deem the succession a betrayal of the Islamic revolution that deposed a dynasty. But he had spent decades running his father's sprawling office and forged close ties with the IRGC. He knows all the courtiers' secrets.
Moneyed Iranians who know Mojtaba liken him to Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince who ditched many of his parents' generation's values, including oppressive Islamic strictures. Behind a veneer of modesty—he once drove to his seminary in a battered Paykan, Iran's first mass-produced car—he is said to control a vast, tax-free empire of conglomerates.
He is thought to be more eager than his late father to acquire a nuclear weapon, and might drop his father's fatwa prohibiting nuclear weaponisation. With Mojtaba hidden from view and the country at war, some speculate the generals could gain the upper hand and, should they approve negotiations with America, ditch the theocracy and sanction a military kleptocracy. Close to the IRGC, he was flanked by Ali Larijani, the head of Iran's national-security council, and Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of parliament, both former IRGC officers.
As of mid-March 2026, Mojtaba had still not been seen in public since his appointment and was rumoured to have been badly injured. It was no longer clear who was calling the shots or naming successors to fill gaps in the leadership. Hardliners were thought to want to appoint Saeed Jalili, a more ideological figure, to replace the assassinated Larijani at the head of the National Security Council. Figures such as Qalibaf or Hassan Rouhani, the former president, could also emerge from the internal jockeying.
By late March Mojtaba remained conspicuously absent—officially for his safety. If he resurfaces, it will probably be as a figurehead. Authority has in practice passed to the IRGC, which now appears to run both the state and the war. Clerics were strong-armed to endorse Mojtaba, but his elevation owed less to religious credentials than to the IRGC's desire for continuity.
The clique surrounding Mojtaba is involved in Iran's oil business. Mohsen Rezaee, a former IRGC commander-in-chief who became Mojtaba's military adviser in March 2026, has a son and son-in-law who are said to move large volumes of crude.
By the time of the April 2026 ceasefire, acceptance within the regime that Mojtaba should succeed his father was fraying. Some questioned his fitness, given that he was widely rumoured to have suffered severe injuries. Others cited his father's purported opposition to dynastic succession. Mojtaba is said to own luxury properties in London.
Seven weeks after his father's death, Mojtaba's successors had not agreed even on a date for Ali Khamenei's funeral. An observer likened the situation to "a jungle of power". Mojtaba may be incapacitated or too weak to impose his authority, leaving Iran without a present and absolute supreme leader for only the second time in its 47-year history. Networks tied to Mojtaba are thought to control foreign-property portfolios.
Ehrman's Commentary: (1) Things will get worse before they get better. (2) Who said things would get better?