A little-known Donald Trump appointee with no prior diplomatic experience has emerged as a central figure in the administration’s outreach to Central Asia — drawing scrutiny over what critics describe as a business-first approach to American diplomacy.
Sergio Gor, who serves simultaneously as U.S. ambassador to India and as the president’s envoy to Central Asia, met with Turkmenistan’s de facto ruler, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, and his son in Ashgabat roughly a month before the reclusive foreign leader’s secretive February visit to South Florida, reported Politico.
“He came looking to make bank,” Eric Rudenshiold, who served under Presidents Trump and Biden as National Security Council director for Central Asia and is currently a senior fellow at the Caspian Policy Institute. “He met with a lot of the real heavy hitters, Trump guys, big money people. I think he’s kind of emblematic, a symbol of what’s going on down there: the most reclusive country in the region, one of the most reclusive countries in the world, coming to The Beach to make deals.”
Trump had left town, but Berdimuhamedov chopped it up with various Trump confidants, including casino magnate Steve Wynn, golf course design CEO John Reese, former Marvel Entertainment CEO Isaac Perlmutter, GOP megadonor William Koch and the Soviet-born Gor.
Born in Tashkent during the Soviet era, Gor emigrated to Europe as a child before settling in the United States, eventually graduating from George Washington University. Before his current dual ambassadorship, Gor ran the White House Presidential Personnel Office for the first 10 months of Trump’s second term, where he built a reputation for installing loyalists throughout the executive branch — a role that put him at odds with Elon Musk over a NASA nomination, with Musk publicly branding him “a snake.” Earlier, Gor partnered with Donald Trump Jr. on a publishing venture producing books by Trump allies, including the president himself.
Despite lacking any formal foreign policy background, Gor has become a constant, peripatetic presence across multiple continents. “It is remarkable that in a short period of time, Gor seems to be everywhere,” said Milan Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, describing him dining with Indian billionaires, attending cricket matches and showing up at remote political ceremonies.
That omnipresence has fueled suspicion among career diplomats.
“We’ve sort of moved to what was once former Soviet politically — the big guys who have titles are essentially oligarchs,” said Richard Hoagland, a former career diplomat who served as ambassador in Kazakhstan and charge d’affaires in Turkmenistan.
“Why would Sergio Gor be the one traveling to Central Asia?” Hoagland added. “He came out of nowhere — not a name in foreign policy at any level. Now he’s not only ambassador to India but envoy to Central Asia. Why? Because he has business interests there. He’s snooping for business.”
However, Ezra Friedlander, a lobbyist representing Azerbaijan, defended Gor’s competence.
“I happen to know Sergio Gor for a very long time,” Friedlander said. “But I found him to be very savvy.”
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