Mojtaba Khamenei, elected as the new Supreme Leader of Iran on the 8th local time, is the second son of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and has long been regarded as a power broker behind the scenes.

According to the New York Times (NYT) and other outlets, Mojtaba, 56 this year, is a mid-ranking Shiite cleric who has wielded strong influence behind the scenes and for years has been discussed as a potential successor to his father as Supreme Leader.

Mojtaba was born in 1969 in Mashhad, one of the foremost Shiite holy cities in Iran. He is the second son among the six children of Khamenei. He observed up close the process by which his father opposed the hereditary rule of the Pahlavi dynasty as a revolutionary activist, later became president, and ultimately rose to the position of Supreme Leader.

After finishing high school, he enlisted in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 1987 and served during the final phase of the Iran-Iraq War, which continued until 1988. During this period he forged ties with figures such as Hossein Taeb, who at the time served as the intelligence chief of the IRGC, and he is known to have expanded his behind-the-scenes influence over decades by maintaining relationships with key figures in the intelligence and security apparatus.

After his father Khamenei succeeded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader in 1989, Mojtaba received clerical training in Qom, a religious city in central Iran.

However, Mojtaba has never held an official public post and is not widely known abroad. Instead, he is regarded as having exerted influence from behind the scenes for many years.

In 2005, he was accused of having orchestrated the overall process by which hardline conservative politician Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidential election. When Ahmadinejad won reelection in the 2009 presidential race against reformist leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, nationwide anti-government protests erupted over accusations of election fraud, and during this period Mojtaba was also suspected of playing a role behind the scenes.

Thereafter, when protests against mandatory hijab rules spread nationwide in 2022, and again when former president Ebrahim Raisi, a leading contender for Supreme Leader, died suddenly in 2024, the possibility of Mojtaba succeeding as Supreme Leader was repeatedly raised.

He is also known to have considerable influence within the elite military organization of the Revolutionary Guard and within the intelligence services.

However, some observers note that in the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was launched in criticism of hereditary rule, a son following his father to become Supreme Leader could provoke significant backlash.

Iran ended hereditary rule by toppling the Pahlavi dynasty through the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Yet there are concerns that if, even after the revolution, a small number of Shiite clerics who hold far more power than elected officials continue to pass power among themselves, the legitimacy of the revolution could be damaged.

In fact, when the Assembly of Experts convened in 2024 to discuss succession to the Supreme Leader, Khamenei also conveyed through close aides that he opposed his son becoming the successor.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has insisted that he should be involved in Iran's succession dynamics, has expressed strong aversion toward Mojtaba, the second son of Khamenei.

In a telephone interview with the U.S. online outlet Axios on the 5th, President Trump said, “The son of Khamenei is unacceptable” and “He is a lightweight.”