When US President Donald Trump wanted someone to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to open negotiations for a potential deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war, he didn’t dispatch his secretary of state.
The man he sent to the Kremlin to handle a titanic geopolitical challenge does not even have a diplomatic background.
Instead Trump picked his personal friend, golf buddy and billionaire real estate developer Steve Witkoff.
The president has made Witkoff his Middle East envoy. But last week the Bronx-born businessman talked about ending a conflict in Eastern Europe with Putin for “about three hours”, in Trump’s words.
Trump said he, too, had a long call with Putin, signalling a possible slight thaw in relations between the two countries.
They swapped prisoners last week, in a deal that Witkoff helped to facilitate in a trip to Moscow. It appears that they discussed the Ukraine war while he was there.
Witkoff also played a part in brokering the current ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, for which both Trump and his predecessor Joe Biden took credit.
Witkoff is now returning to the region – specifically Saudi Arabia – for the first US-Russian face-to-face talks over the war in Ukraine after Trump’s call with Putin.
But the bold moves made by Trump’s team are stirring concern among Western allies, who fear a new world order in which key players are shut out of discussions. Ukraine and other European nations were not invited to the Saudi meeting.
So, who is Witkoff – dubbed by US media as “the man in the room”, taking centre stage as more potentially consequential international talks take place?
He was one of Trump’s first picks for his top team after his presidential election win in November. Trump wrote: “Steve will be an unrelenting voice for PEACE, and make us all proud.”
“The president sees Steve as one of the world’s great dealmakers,” a White House official told Axios. Witkoff’s preferred negotiating tactic was to use charm, according to another associate, but he could also turn up the pressure.
The 67-year-old was raised in Long Island, New York and trained as a real estate developer in one of America’s most cut-throat markets.
As a long-time Republican donor, he has known Trump for decades, and, like the president, made his fortune in real estate in both New York and Florida.
Addressing last year’s Republican National Convention, during which he recalled speaking to Trump in the aftermath of an assassination attempt, Witkoff called the other man his “true and dear friend… in good times and bad times”.
The two men are also long-time golfing companions, US Senator Lindsey Graham told NBC News. “Steve and I would be the two guys who would play Trump and somebody else, and lose,” Graham said.
Graham added that Witkoff first mentioned his interest in becoming Middle East envoy to Trump during a lunchtime conversation. “That stunned me, because I didn’t know he was interested in the Mideast,” Graham said.
Witkoff’s deal-making skills were on display during Trump’s 2024 campaign. He helped to ease tension between Trump and his defeated Republican presidential primary rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Witkoff also reportedly met Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to smooth things over, after Kemp drew Trump’s scorn for refusing to support his unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 election which Trump lost to Biden.
He currently serves as chairman of the University of Miami’s business school real estate advisory board, and was appointed by Trump during his first term to the board of trustees of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
