Congress passed legislation more than four decades ago suggesting that potential U.S. ambassadors either be career diplomats or career foreign service officers.

Casino owner and gaming investor Tilman Fertitta — the president’s pick to represent the U.S. in Italy — is neither. 

But he is the wealthiest of President Donald Trump’s list of nearly 30 ambassador nominees, with a net worth of almost $11 billion, according to Forbes.

Under the rules established by the Foreign Service Act of 1980, U.S. government policy requires that he place his privately held business holdings into a trust or under the control of one of his top executives during the four years he hopes to serve in Italy.

At least one foreign policy expert doesn’t expect the Houston-based Fertitta, 67, will comply.

His gaming holdings include eight Golden Nugget casinos in six states — including three in Nevada — and nearly 11 million shares of Wynn Resorts. He became the largest stockholder in the Las Vegas-based casino operator last month with a 10 percent stake. 

He controls restaurant and hospitality giant Landry’s Entertainment, which has more than 600 restaurants under 22 brands throughout the U.S., including Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., Del Frisco’s and Claim Jumper. Fertitta also owns the NBA’s Houston Rockets.

“The American people are paying for a full-time ambassador and the Senate confirms a person to do the job full time,” said Eric Rubin, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria from 2016-2020. “I’m not saying [Fertitta] won’t do the job full time, but we’ve had issues in the past where appointees are not spending enough time at their posted assignment.”

The salary for a U.S. ambassador can range from $166,857 to $231,525, depending on merit and performance. In Italy, the U.S. ambassador lives rent free in Villa Taverna, which is on 7 acres in one of Rome’s most exclusive neighborhoods and features a Roman sarcophagus, ancient Egyptian granite columns, a swimming pool and a tennis court.

Rubin said presidents are allowed to nominate whoever they want as ambassadors, which has led to most of the appointees having political connections as opposed to extensive foreign policy experience. However, as a career foreign service officer for parts of three decades, serving in Europe and Moscow, Rubin said an ambassadorship “is not considered a part-time job.”

He said the administration of President George W. Bush, more than two decades ago, instituted a rule that all ambassadors must be at their posted assignment at least 11 months a year, and they can only be away for more than two weeks at a time under special circumstances.

However, Rubin, who is also a former president of the Washington, D.C.-based American Foreign Service Association and has taught diplomacy at Georgetown University, questioned the strength of the rule, given that Trump fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics last month. 

“Whether that rule will be enforced by this administration is something I can’t tell you,” Rubin said.

Fertitta’s appointment was announced in December. In a statement, he called it an honor.

“Italy is such an extraordinary country with its wonderful people, culture, and history and its strategic importance to The United States of America," he said.

Fertitta did not respond to numerous interview requests nor emailed questions from The Nevada Independent.

Trump, in a post on his social media platform Truth Social, wrote that Fertitta was “an accomplished businessman, who has founded and built one of our country’s premier entertainment and real estate companies, employing approximately 50,000 Americans.”

Fertitta is also a Trump supporter, having hosted a fundraiser for the president at his Post Oak Hotel in Houston in 2024, according to The Texas Tribune.

Fertitta has ancestral roots in the region of Italy. His great-great-uncles were Sicilian immigrants who settled in Galveston, Texas, around the 1940s and operated a nightclub that doubled as an illegal casino. He is a cousin of Frank Fertitta III and Lorenzo Fertitta, the majority shareholders of Red Rock Resorts, the parent company of Station Casinos.

Fertitta published a book in 2019 titled Shut Up and Listen! Hard Business Truths that Will Help You Succeed. He also hosted Billionaire Buyer, a reality television series on CNBC that aired for three seasons.

Rubin said Italy’s ambassadorship is not considered “a crisis job” but has long been one of the prime locations for political appointees by the last few presidents. Several dozen U.S. agencies have offices at the U.S. embassy in Rome, which also oversees consulates in Milan, Florence and Naples. He added that the current Italian government “is probably more in tune with the Trump administration than some big European countries.”

Trump’s ambassador to Italy in his first administration was Lewis Eisenberg, who co-founded private equity firm Granite Capital International Group. The most recent ambassador, appointed by former President Joe Biden, was former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell (D).

“I would not specifically criticize this nomination or this administration, because this has been what every administration has done with jobs like these,” Rubin said. “In recent years, all of the ambassadorships in Western Europe have been political appointees. Some of them are very good and do a great job. Some of them are not very good.”

Rubin said close to 50 percent of Trump’s ambassador nominees going back to his first administration have been political appointees rather than people with career foreign service experience.

Next steps

Fertitta’s nomination will be considered by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which recommends ambassador nominees to the full Senate. Suzanne Wrasse, a spokeswoman for the committee, said the vetting process for all nominees includes business interests.

The Office of Government Ethics also conducts a vetting process with the nominee.

The committee has not scheduled any ambassador hearings. 

Other ambassador nominees include football star and former U.S. Senate candidate from Georgia Herschel Walker for the Bahamas; convicted felon and real estate developer Charles Kushner — father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Ivanka — for France; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) for Israel; and former television news anchor and ex-Donald Trump Jr. fiancée Kimberley Guilfoyle for Greece.

A source familiar with the process said all nominees must complete financial disclosure forms that are reviewed by U.S. State Department ethics lawyers.

The Senate’s priority is to vote on the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Trump’s choice for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She had a hearing in late January with the committee but Senate confirmation has slowed because of the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the House. Some Republicans see Stefanik’s reliably Trump-aligned vote as crucial to fast-tracking the president’s agenda and are in no rush for her to leave her post in Congress.

Until that vote takes place, the ambassador hearings are on hold.

The committee includes Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), whose states are home to Golden Nugget casinos; both senators from Texas, Republicans John Cornyn and Ted Cruz; and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), whose family trust owns Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs.

Rosen, through a spokesperson, did not offer any indication on how she might lean on the nomination.

Gaming Control Board Chairman Kirk Hendrick said licensees are required to keep regulators apprised “of all matters that could affect their licensing or gaming operations in the state,” adding that the agency “does not comment on matters pertaining to specific applicants or licensees.”

Fertitta has been licensed by Nevada gaming regulators for his ownership of the Golden Nugget resorts in Las Vegas, Laughlin and Lake Tahoe. He also owns 6 acres at the southeast corner of the Strip and Harmon Avenue that he purchased for $270 million in 2023. Fertitta intends to build a 43-story, 2,420-room hotel-casino on the plot but has not moved forward with the project.

He also holds a 9.9 percent stake in Wynn Resorts, with an option to purchase almost 1.7 million additional shares that would bring his stake to almost 11 percent. That option, disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that accompanies February’s stock purchase, expires in May.

“We enjoy a positive dialogue with Tilman Fertitta, as we do with all of our shareholders, and look forward to continuing to engage with him,” Wynn Resorts said in an unsigned email. 

Ambassadors with Nevada connections

Fertitta would not be the first ambassador with ties to the Silver State.

Las Vegas advertising executive and political consultant Sig Rogich served as the U.S. ambassador to his native Iceland in 1992 after being nominated by President George H.W. Bush.

Three years earlier, Rogich had placed his business interests, including ownership of marketing and public relations firm R&R Advertising (now R&R Partners), into a trust when he joined the White House as a senior adviser to the president.

“It was suggested, not mandated,” Rogich said, adding that he sold his stock in several public companies before joining the Bush administration. “I wanted to err on the side of caution. There was a White House ethics office that provided guidance.”

Rogich said he wasn’t going to speculate how Fertitta might handle his business interests once the appointment becomes official.

Nevada had a connection with one other U.S. ambassador: former Sen. Chic Hecht (R-NV). He was appointed as the ambassador to the Bahamas by Bush in 1989 after he lost his bid for re-election to then-Nevada Gov. Richard Bryan (D) in 1988. Hecht, who served as ambassador until 1993, was a Las Vegas businessman before he was elected to the Senate. He died in 2006.

The closest comparison to Fertitta might be Woody Johnson, the majority owner of the NFL’s New York Jets, who has a net worth of $1.7 billion and served as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom between 2017 and 2021 during the first Trump administration. Johnson’s brother Christopher took over the Jets’ operations during those four years. Woody Johnson resumed his role as the team’s chairman when his ambassadorship ended.