Larry Silverstein became a billionaire rebuilding the World Trade Center. Gigi Hadid’s father, Mohamed Hadid, made his fortune building mansions in Los Angeles before a single house pushed him into bankruptcy. Real estate is the only genuine link between the two names, which otherwise share no history, no business dealings and no personal connection.
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Who is Larry Silverstein?
Larry Silverstein is the New York developer who rebuilt the World Trade Center. He is 95 and still runs Silverstein Properties, the firm he started with his father in 1957.
Most of his reputation rests on one deal. He signed a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center in July 2001 for $3.25 billion, the largest property transaction in the city’s history at the time. That September, the towers came down.
He was not in the building when the first plane hit. His wife, Klara, had insisted he keep a dermatologist appointment that morning, which is the only reason he missed his usual breakfast on an upper floor.
Rebuilding the site took more than two decades. He fought his insurers over a policy that capped payouts at $3.55 billion per event, arguing the two plane strikes counted as two separate events and two payouts. That case settled in 2007 for $4.55 billion. He also spent years at odds with the Port Authority, a string of New York governors, and the architects assigned to the project.
Three of his towers are now built and occupied: 7 World Trade Center, 4 World Trade Center and 3 World Trade Center. In February 2026, American Express signed on as the anchor tenant for the last of them, 2 World Trade Center, removing the final obstacle to finishing the complex.
Forbes estimated his net worth at about $1 billion in late 2024. He told his own version of the rebuild in a 2024 book, The Rising, and summed up his career at the launch in four words, “Never bet against New York.”
Who is Gigi Hadid?
Gigi Hadid is one of the most recognizable models of the past decade. She was born in Los Angeles in 1995, signed with IMG Models in 2013, and walked her first New York Fashion Week the year after. Since then she has fronted Vogue covers around the world and ranked among the highest-paid models in the business. Her younger sister, Bella Hadid, built a career on the same runways. In 2020 she had a daughter, Khai, with the singer Zayn Malik.
She has never worked in property. The real estate part of her story belongs to her father, Mohamed Hadid.
What happened to Mohamed Hadid, Gigi Hadid’s father?
Mohamed Hadid spent decades building expensive homes and hotels in and around Los Angeles. He developed Ritz-Carlton properties, sold a Bel-Air estate called Le Belvedere for $50 million in 2010, and once beat Donald Trump in a bidding contest for resort land in Aspen. For years he was one of the most visible luxury developers in the city.
His decline began with one house. On a hillside at 901 Strada Vecchia in Bel-Air, he built a mega-mansion much larger than the city had approved and without the proper permits. Neighbors raised safety concerns about the structure.
What followed is documented in court records:
- Los Angeles prosecutors brought criminal charges in 2015.
- Hadid pleaded no contest in May 2017. That July, a judge sentenced him to 200 hours of community service, a $3,000 fine, $14,191 in restitution, and three years of probation.
- A judge ordered the mansion torn down as a safety risk. In late 2019, Hadid’s lawyers told the court he could not afford the roughly $500,000 the demolition would cost. His construction company filed for bankruptcy soon after, reporting debts between $10 million and $50 million.
- In December 2021, the property sold at auction for $5 million.
What Gigi Hadid built instead
Gigi Hadid watched all of this up close, and the company she launched in 2022 went in almost the opposite direction from property development.
Her brand, Guest in Residence, sells cashmere knitwear, and she runs it as creative director. The name plays on the idea that you never really own the places you live in, you only stay in them for a while. She has said it grew out of the hand-me-down cashmere sweaters her parents gave her when she moved to New York as a teenager, each one already carrying a history. The designer Virgil Abloh, before his death in 2021, encouraged her to take on the creative director role.
Where her father bet heavily on permanent buildings and lost, she built a business around soft goods meant to be kept and handed on.
Silverstein and Hadid at a glance
| Larry Silverstein | Gigi Hadid | |
|---|---|---|
| Born | 1931, Brooklyn | 1995, Los Angeles |
| Known for | Rebuilding the World Trade Center | Modeling and the brand Guest in Residence |
| Real estate link | Built his fortune in property | Through her father, Mohamed Hadid |
| Net worth | About $1 billion (Forbes, 2024) | Estimated around $30 million |
| Career bet | Permanent buildings | Goods made to be passed down |
Common questions
Are Larry Silverstein and Gigi Hadid related?
No. There is no family link and no business relationship between them. The only connection is indirect, through the real estate industry that shaped both their families.
What is Gigi Hadid’s link to real estate?
It comes from her father, Mohamed Hadid, a Los Angeles luxury home developer. Gigi works in fashion and runs the cashmere label Guest in Residence rather than in property.
What happened to Mohamed Hadid’s Bel-Air mansion?
A judge ordered it demolished after he built it larger than the city had approved and without proper permits. He filed for bankruptcy in 2019, and the property sold at auction in December 2021 for $5 million.
Where things stand now
In February 2026, after twenty-five years of lawsuits, insurance fights and stalled blueprints, Silverstein signed American Express to fill his last World Trade Center tower. At 95, the project that has shaped most of his career is nearly finished.
On the other coast, the mansion that bankrupted Mohamed Hadid is gone, torn down and its land sold off. His daughter now runs a company built on a simpler bet, that the things worth having are the ones you keep long enough to give to someone else.
