Kushner is also leading a new Office of American Innovation out of the White House, which will bring in ideas and business leaders from the private sector to circumvent bureaucratic red tape to take on opioid addiction, I.T. spending, veterans’ issues, work-training programs, and the president’s $1 billion infrastructure plan. Kushner also reportedly visited lawmakers on Capitol Hill to discuss criminal-justice reform and met with experts to talk health-care reform.

As the full freight of Kushner’s tab has come into view, observers have noted that, at best, he is overloaded, and at worse, headed under water. The trip to Iraq, on top of his new White House office and previous foreign-policy roles, only highlighted the meta administration he is running within the administration. To some, it is an ill-fated move that sets him up for certain failure. One pro-Israel operative told Politico that while “there were high hopes” that Kushner could be an effective force in the Middle East, there is now “deep concern that Jared is not the person we thought he was—that this guy who is supposed to be good at everything is totally out of his depth.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer defended Kushner during his briefing Monday when a reporter asked if he could accomplish all of the things he has taken on. “He has a team that he oversees,” Spicer said, explaining that Kushner isn’t at this alone.

Kushner seems to be treating his role in the West Wing less as a traditional senior adviser, or even as a mini-president, and more as a C.E.O. of the United States. He meets with one world leader; he stops by Capitol Hill; he starts a commission on opioids and invites former drug addicts to share their moving stories with the group; he calls up another world leader. He seemingly has his hand in everything, but those hands rarely get dirty.

Part of this, at least, is that Trump seems to want him involved in all these various aspects. According to the person familiar with Kushner and the campaign, he is a good manager, but he is an even more loyal Trump employee. “Even if he had a lot of other things going on, he did what he told him to do.”

Another part, though, is pure business strategy. As one person familiar with this strategy told me, the more balls you have in the air, the more you are able to spread your risk far and wide. “People can’t keep score as well. There are too many games going on,” the person said. “He can’t be judged on one building, like he was in real estate with 666 Fifth Avenue,” a building he bought at the helm of his family’s company for a then-record price and has recently sought buyers to help pay off looming debt. “He’s not going to be judged like he was in the media world for one paper, The Observer,” which he bought around the same time. The paper announced in November that it would stop printing and move to online only. With so many responsibilities on his plate in the White House, the person said, no one can judge him on any one thing.

That is a strategy that works for venture capitalists and C.E.O.s, especially those not entirely confident in their abilities to carry one thing over the line. Ten ideas may fail, but people only remember the one success.

“You know what the greatest deal he’s made so far has been? Ever?” the person asked me. “Marrying Ivanka Trump.”