ROCK THE BOAT

Trump’s Billionaire Ambassador Divides Italy With $450M ‘Love Boat’

The hospitality magnate is using his personal wealth to augment his diplomacy.

Donald Trump’s ambassador to Italy is causing a stir in the European nation with his $450 million megayacht.

Tilman Fertitta, the multi-billionaire owner of Golden Nugget Hotel and Casinos, Bubba Gump Shrimp, and the Houston Rockets, has flaunted his excessive personal wealth in Italy since Trump appointed him as an ambassador at the start of his second term, according to The Washington Post.

Aboard his 383-foot-long luxury yacht dubbed the Boardwalk, the 69-year-old business magnate has hosted lavish parties as part of a “Coastal Diplomatic Tour” to court powerful figures in Italy.

Fertitta’s $450 million vessel features two helipads, two pools, a spa, a gym, and even a scuba room, the newspaper reported.

The newspaper reported that when Fertitta arrived in Italy last year, he spent over $2 million of his own cash to renovate Villa Taverna, the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in Rome.

He estimates that the two-and-a-half-month coastal tour on the Boardwalk, intended to celebrate the U.S. semiquincentennial, will cost him another million dollars out of pocket, according to the Post.

The Italian-American, whose net worth exceeds $11 billion, according to Forbes, has encountered both praise and criticism for his “Love Boat” style of diplomacy and for mixing his personal wealth with his duties as a U.S. official.

“From our viewpoint, his main [asset] is that he’s fond of Italy and feels profoundly connected to it,” Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told the Post. “The other advantage is that Trump respects him. He’s one of the few who may ring him up and talk for half an hour about anything.”

One time, Fertitta used his money magic to give Crosetto, an avid basketball fan, a phone call with Shaquille O’Neal, the newspaper reported.

But others have not fallen under the hospitality mogul’s spell.

“Political ambassadors will mostly use their personal wealth to upgrade the residence,” Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, told the Post. “But to flaunt it this much? My reaction when I found out that … he was out there in this yacht is that this is inappropriate.”

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Italian lawmaker Angelo Bonelli has also criticized Fertitta’s lavish lifestyle, saying that “such a display of wealth is frankly odious” and that it “doesn’t work” in Italy.

When he docked in Venice last month, he was met with protestors chanting “No space for billionaires” and “Venice is not the United States.”

Still, Fertitta insists that Italians appreciate his grandeur.

“You have an ambassador that has cachet, and the Italians like that,” the Texan told the Post on his yacht. “They like that [they’re] important enough to us that you’re going to come into our town, on your big boat, and pay respect to us and have us in your home. That’s what I hear from people.”

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Vic VerbalaitisNight Breaking News Reporter

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