When President Trump’s former personal lawyer, Alina Habba, married a Turkish businessman last month, the lavish ceremony cemented their status as a MAGA power couple.
Ms. Habba, 42, a longtime Trump loyalist, and Turhan Mildon, a 29-year-old investor, hosted some of Washington’s most powerful people, including Attorney General Todd Blanche, the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, and Will Scharf, the White House counsel.
It was a striking official entry into Trumpworld for Mr. Mildon, who nearly a year ago faced the loss of his extensive business interests in Venezuela because of his ties to the inner circle of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan leader who was captured by U.S. commandos in January.
It also put a new focus on the intermingling of personal relationships and foreign policy in the Trump era, in this case highlighting a battle for wealth and influence involving well-connected people in both Caracas and Washington seeking to use access to Mr. Trump to their benefit.
Before the United States captured Mr. Maduro, aides to Mr. Trump and some U.S. intelligence officials expressed concern about Mr. Mildon’s work with the Maduro government, according to multiple people briefed on the matter. Mr. Mildon had spent months trying to build ties between Alex Saab, one of Mr. Maduro’s closest confidants in Venezuela, and Republicans in Mr. Trump’s orbit. The Trump administration had considered placing sanctions on Mr. Mildon, two people involved in the discussions at the time said.
Once Mr. Maduro was out of the picture, things for Mr. Mildon got even worse.
Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, ordered an audit of the state-owned cement plants that Mr. Mildon was operating. In June, she issued an order revoking his contract altogether, citing a failure to meet investment targets, according to a copy of the document seen by The New York Times.
At that point, his patrons could no longer protect him. Mr. Maduro was not only out of power, but sitting in an American jail. Mr. Saab, Mr. Mildon’s most powerful ally in Venezuela, was arrested and extradited to the United States.
But there was a bright spot: Mr. Mildon had met Ms. Habba, one of Mr. Trump’s most prominent legal defenders. They started dating this year, soon after Mr. Maduro’s downfall. By this past summer, the couple’s burgeoning romance had begun to draw attention. Specifically, it caught the eye of Ms. Rodríguez, according to two people close to her. Mr. Mildon was in a serious relationship with a woman who had high-level access to Mr. Trump — the one person keeping Ms. Rodríguez in power.
Since taking office, Ms. Rodríguez has been trying to balance the interests of the competing MAGA factions, and gauging their relative influence over Mr. Trump. After learning of Mr. Mildon’s powerful allies, she decided to pause her order terminating his cement contracts, allowing him to continue to profit from them, according to people familiar with her thinking.
A spokesman for Mr. Mildon said the government had never carried out the audit and that his company was only notified of the contract’s termination on Oct. 8, the day The Times began inquiring about the status of his operation in Venezuela.
The spokesman for Mr. Mildon said his client believed the letter was a mistake and that he was working to address the issue. The spokesman also took issue with the suggestion that the United States had considered sanctioning Mr. Mildon, calling it a “totally false and malicious rumor.”
An administration official also disputed whether the government had considered sanctions against Mr. Mildon.
The Venezuelan government did not respond to a request for comment.
White House officials say that Ms. Habba, who now goes by Mrs. Mildon, has not discussed her husband’s business dealings with Mr. Trump or any other White House officials.
“I have never, under any circumstances got involved with this White House or administration on behalf of my husband, nor would he ever ask me to,” she said in a statement.
The U.S. sanctions proceedings against Mr. Mildon were shelved after the regime change in Caracas, overtaken by bigger targets inside the government, according to a person familiar with the matter.
In the meantime, Mr. Mildon’s relationship with Ms. Habba grew closer. In September, they were married, in a ballroom in New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel.
This article is based on interviews with more than two dozen people with knowledge of the events, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the details of the relationship and Mr. Mildon’s business interests.
Know-How? Or Know-Who?
Mr. Mildon explained his business strategy in an interview published earlier this month with Forbes Turkey. “In my grandfather’s time, know-how, (knowledge) was very important,” Mr. Mildon told the magazine. “Now, know-who (who you know) is important.”
Mr. Mildon grew up in a provincial Turkish town near the strait of the Dardanelles, where his family ran a network of local businesses, including auto-repair shops and gas stations.
His big break coincided with his first marriage, in 2021, to a daughter of a construction magnate close to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Shortly after the wedding, Mr. Mildon met the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Félix Tshisekedi, at an event in Istanbul and jumped on an airplane to explore investment opportunities in the country, Mr. Mildon’s spokesman said. He quickly built close ties with the Congolese political elites and won contracts for prominent construction projects.
Mr. Mildon became an adviser to Mr. Tshisekedi in 2023 and obtained a Congolese diplomatic passport. People who have met him in Washington and Caracas said he had on multiple occasions introduced himself as a Congolese official.
Mr. Mildon’s spokesman denied that his client had ever introduced himself as a Congolese official. Congo’s foreign ministry declined to comment.
In late 2023, Mr. Mildon, who portrays himself as a billionaire, flew into the Venezuelan capital at the invitation of a Venezuelan friend.
As he had in Congo, Mr. Mildon quickly made powerful friends. He won the support of the local Turkish ambassador and met the daughter of a powerful admiral.
His most critical relationship was with Mr. Saab, the Maduro confidant who had recently returned to Caracas from an American jail and been appointed as industry minister.
The spokesman for Mr. Mildon said his client had had only professional, and occasional, interactions with Mr. Saab, who was the official responsible for dealing with foreign investors. Numerous people close to the Venezuelan government, however, said the two became personally close.
In March 2025, Mr. Saab gave Mr. Mildon a contract to operate the cement plants.
A few months later, the Venezuelan government awarded Mr. Mildon a shrimp production and export business in western Venezuela. The government had seized the business months earlier from its private founder, José Enrique Rincón, after accusing him of financing the political opposition. Mr. Rincón remains in jail.
The spokesman for Mr. Mildon said Mr. Saab had played no role in the shrimp business award and that Mr. Mildon had participated in a bidding process with four others to obtain the cement business. The spokesman said he did not know who the other bidders were.
Mr. Mildon’s account is disputed by numerous prominent Venezuelan businessmen and people close to the government, who said that Mr. Saab and other Venezuelan ministers handed out state-run assets to private investors without competitive bidding.
Back-Channel Diplomacy
As his fortunes rose, Mr. Mildon’s first marriage crumbled.
In June 2025, he became engaged to María Eugenia Ceballos, a Venezuelan admiral’s daughter, Mr. Mildon’s spokesman said. Her father, Adm. Remigio Ceballos, served for years as the operational head of Venezuelan military and is under U.S. sanctions for participating in corruption and human rights abuses.
The Trump administration at the time was escalating economic and military pressure on Mr. Maduro, and Mr. Mildon became increasingly involved in back-channel diplomacy between Washington and Caracas. His efforts put him in a group of multinational businessmen who had sought preferential treatment by ferrying messages between the capitals last year. These intermediaries have included a Brazilian beef billionaire, an American asphalt tycoon and a Venezuelan oil magnate.
Mr. Mildon also began attending social events organized by Republican insiders.
He became a frequent guest at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where he networked with the man in charge of the institution at the time, Richard Grenell. Mr. Grenell was also working as Mr. Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela, and trying to broker Mr. Maduro’s exit from power.
Mr. Grenell introduced Mr. Mildon to some of the MAGA crowd. Mr. Mildon’s spokesman said his client and Ms. Habba had first met at an event at the Kennedy Center in late 2025, and started dating in early 2026.
Ms. Habba’s ties to Mr. Trump go back years. She met Mr. Trump through his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., and joined his legal team after his first term, representing him in two civil trials. She joined the White House at the start of Mr. Trump’s second term, then served briefly as New Jersey’s interim U.S. attorney.
She has maintained a close relationship with the president to this day, and met with him in the Oval Office last week.
Even as he was meeting Ms. Habba, Mr. Mildon was navigating the shifting political landscape in Venezuela after Ms. Rodríguez had been put in power by the Americans. His spokesman said Mr. Mildon had always supported Ms. Rodríguez, who served as Mr. Maduro’s vice president until his arrest.
But several people who met Mr. Mildon in Washington last year, before Mr. Maduro’s capture by U.S. forces, said Mr. Mildon had praised Mr. Saab, her ruling party rival, presenting him as Venezuela’s pre-eminent power broker and the key to a peaceful resolution of the conflict with the United States.
As it turns out, Mr. Mildon had backed the wrong side.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio sidelined Mr. Grenell and persuaded Mr. Trump to adopt a more aggressive stance toward Mr. Maduro. Mr. Rubio settled on Ms. Rodríguez as Mr. Maduro’s successor, and set in motion plans for a military operation that would topple the Venezuelan president and install her in power.
Mr. Maduro dismissed the growing threats from the White House as a bluff, right until U.S. military aircraft attacked Caracas in the early hours of Jan. 3.
The arrest of Mr. Maduro, and then Mr. Saab, threatened Mr. Mildon’s businesses in Venezuela. The new government accused him of failing to raise output and lower prices. Contractors complained of unpaid invoices.
Mr. Mildon tried to build ties to Ms. Rodríguez. When Christopher Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax, a pro-Trump news channel, secured a meeting with her in February, Mr. Mildon tagged along. The spokesman for Mr. Mildon said he has spoken with Ms. Rodríguez several times since.
Mr. Mildon told Forbes Turkey that he produces 4.5 million tons of cement a year in Venezuela. Data seen by The Times shows that Venezuela’s entire annual cement output is about a third of that figure.
He visited one of the cement plants in June, promising to bring new investment and raise output. He wore a red shirt of the type that was ubiquitous among ruling party apparatchiks, but had largely been abandoned since Mr. Maduro was captured. He gave two thumbs-up, Trump style.
Mr. Mildon also claimed in the Forbes Turkey interview that his shrimp business employed 20,000 people and would reach revenues of $500 million in two years. Data seen by The Times, however, shows that in the first eight months of the year the plants sold on average just 5 percent of the shrimp, in terms of volume, that they had been shipping before the government takeover.
After the The Times presented Mr. Mildon with the data, his spokesman said Mr. Mildon had been misquoted in the Forbes Turkey article.
A Reversal in Fortune
As Venezuela evolved, so did Mr. Mildon’s fortunes.
Mr. Maduro was gone. Mr. Mildon’s powerful political backers were fired or sidelined.
His relationship with Ms. Ceballos, the daughter of Mr. Maduro’s longtime military official, also ended. (Adm. Ceballos did not respond to a request for comment. Ms. Ceballos could not be reached.)
But Mr. Mildon’s marriage ceremony to Ms. Habba, which the wedding planners boasted had come together in under 60 days, was ahigh-profile social event, attracting dignitaries, oligarchs and senior politicians from around the world, who were in New York for the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Nelly, the Grammy Award-winning rapper, performed.
And Mr. Mildon’s cement businesses are still operating, his spokesman says.
He is working to stave off Ms. Rodríguez’s revocation of his contract. It is a development that he apparently did not expect.
“When no one else had the guts to come, one man did and invested millions,” he said in the Forbes Turkey interview, referring to himself and his business in Venezuela. “They’re not the sort of people who would turn their backs, now that things are better, on a man who trusted them and came here in good faith.”
Reporting was contributed by Justin Makangara from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Julian E. Barnes and Glenn Thrush from Washington and Benjamin Weiser from New York. Sheelagh McNeill and Safak Timur contributed research.
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