Mojtaba Khamenei and the 2026 Succession

Mojtaba Khamenei, born in Mashhad in 1969, is the second son of Ali Khamenei and became Iran’s third Supreme Leader on 8 March 2026, chosen by the Assembly of Experts eight days after his father was killed in a US–Israeli strike. A mid-ranking cleric with long ties to the Revolutionary Guards, he had never held elected office, and since his appointment he has not appeared in public; he was injured in the strike that killed his father.

A son of the revolution

Mojtaba Khamenei was born in Mashhad, where his father was then a young cleric active against the shah. He went to school in Tehran and, as a teenager in the late 1980s, served with the Revolutionary Guards’ Habib battalion in the Iran–Iraq War. Several of the men he served with later rose to senior posts in the Guards and the intelligence services, and those ties shaped his career. From 1989, the year his father became Supreme Leader, he studied in the seminaries of Qom, and he later taught advanced jurisprudence there for many years.

He married Zahra Haddad-Adel, a daughter of the conservative politician Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, a former speaker of parliament.

Influence behind the scenes

For two decades Mojtaba Khamenei was described as one of the most powerful people in his father’s office, yet he gave no public speeches, sermons or interviews of note, and many Iranians had never heard his voice. Reformists accused him of helping to engineer Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009 and of directing the Basij militia against the protests that followed (see the Green Movement); he never publicly answered these accusations. In 2019 the US Treasury placed him under sanctions, saying he represented the Leader in an official capacity despite never having been elected. Bloomberg and other Western media have reported that he controls large business interests through intermediaries, which he has not addressed.

The succession of March 2026

When Ali Khamenei was killed on 28 February 2026 (see the killing of Ali Khamenei), his wife, his sister Boshra and other relatives were killed. Early reports said Mojtaba was not present; Iran’s ambassador to Cyprus later said he had been at the compound and was injured. Under the constitution an interim council took over the Leader’s duties, and the Assembly of Experts, the elected body of senior clerics that chooses the Leader, began meeting under bombardment.

The process was hurried and largely hidden. Members met remotely because in-person sessions were judged too dangerous, and Iranian media reported that the Assembly’s office in Qom was hit by a strike. Foreign media, citing people involved, reported divisions: according to these accounts, senior Revolutionary Guards commanders pressed for Mojtaba Khamenei, while more moderate figures warned that choosing the late Leader’s son would look like a hereditary succession. These reports could not be independently verified.

On Sunday 8 March the Assembly announced that it had chosen Mojtaba Khamenei by a “decisive vote” and called on Iranians, especially the seminaries and universities, to pledge allegiance. State institutions issued statements of loyalty; the defence council said it would obey the new commander-in-chief “until the last drop of our blood”. Commentators noted that a father-to-son succession recalled the hereditary Pahlavi monarchy that the 1979 revolution had overthrown, and some senior clerics questioned his suitability.

Reactions

President Donald Trump had called Mojtaba Khamenei an “unacceptable” choice before the vote, and said afterwards that he was disappointed by it. Inside Iran, supporters of the system presented the rapid choice as proof that the Islamic Republic had survived the loss of its leader, while opponents saw it as confirmation that the Revolutionary Guards now held decisive power.

An unseen leader

Since his appointment Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public. In March Iran’s ambassador to Cyprus confirmed that he had been injured and said he had been lucky to survive. In April Reuters, citing unnamed sources, reported that his wounds were severe; Iranian officials have not published details of his condition. Written statements issued in his name have been read on state television, without any video or audio of him. In March a senior Iranian official told Reuters that he had rejected proposals from intermediaries to reduce tensions with the United States.

He was still not seen in public by the time of his father’s funeral in July 2026. How much day-to-day control he exercises, and how much rests with the Revolutionary Guards and the Supreme National Security Council, is unclear to outside observers. For the structure of power he sits at the top of, see how Iran is governed; for the war that brought him to office, see the 2026 war.

This page describes events up to July 2026.