Devin Nunes' unexplained meeting with Balkans leader raises specter of new conflict
Earlier this summer, Devin Nunes, the CEO of Trump Media and a former California congressman, touched down just outside Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia.
He and a small group of other North American executives were there to talk business. But they weren’t there to meet with representatives from another company. A high-ranking official from the Macedonian government greeted them on the tarmac outside their private jet. Then a police escort ferried them from the airport. They were there to meet with the Balkan nation’s newly elected prime minister.
At the time, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, the leader of the country’s conservative nationalist party, offered little in the way of specifics about the meeting’s purpose: “For now, I would not reveal this type of details,” he told local reporters in the Balkans who covered the meeting at the time.
In a recent earnings call, Chris Pavlovski, who accompanied Nunes on the trip and who is the CEO of Rumble, a video streaming company and close partner of Trump Media, revealed that he had discussed a cloud technology services deal with the Macedonian government.
The meeting is the first known instance of the former president’s media company dealing directly with a foreign government — and in this case one that is eager for a future Trump administration’s assistance on a wide range of security, economic and diplomatic issues.
In his public comments, the prime minister boasted about the visiting delegation’s political connections. He described Nunes and another attendee as “two of the closest associates of former president of the United States Donald Trump.”
As Trump runs for a second term, ethics experts have warned that his valuable stake in Trump Media and its Twitter-like platform Truth Social presents opportunities for influence. Advertisers, vendors or investors who have political agendas could use their business relationships with the social media enterprise to seek favorable treatment from a Trump administration.
A Trump Media spokesperson didn’t respond to detailed questions, including about what role the company might play in such an agreement or whether one has been reached.
The spokesperson provided a statement saying only, “The ProPublica geniuses, much to our dismay, have discovered Devin Nunes’ secret plan to reconstitute Alexander the Great’s empire and get Chris Pavlovski named King of Macedon.”
Spokespeople for the Trump campaign, Rumble and the Macedonian prime minister didn’t respond to questions.
Trump’s term in office was marked by concerns that foreign governments sought to curry favor by patronizing his businesses, including his Washington, D.C., hotel. Trump’s businesses had numerous dealings abroad even after his attorney pledged he would not enter into new foreign deals while he was president. If the Macedonian government makes a deal with Trump Media or its partners and Trump is once again elected president, it could be another instance in which his private business interests intersect with U.S. foreign policy.
“They want an in with Trump,” said a U.S. government official who has been involved in Eastern European issues, noting that North Macedonia seeks U.S. support in diplomatic disputes with its neighbors. “We have enormous leverage.”
Trump Media launched just a few years ago, in 2021, but Trump’s nearly 60% stake in the company now represents an important chunk of his personal fortune.
Trump Media’s stock is trading at about a quarter of the high it hit in March soon after it went public, but the company’s value remains around $3 billion, based in part on hype and speculation fueled by Trump fans. The company has little revenue and Truth Social has yet to catch on as a threat to the major social media platforms. Trump’s stake is currently worth around $2 billion. In one week, he will be able to sell his shares for the first time.
Joining Nunes on the July trip were two other figures in Trump’s orbit: Pavlovski, the Rumble CEO, and Howard Lutnick, a Trump donor and Wall Street executive who helped Rumble go public and was recently named the co-chair of Trump’s transition planning team.
Pavlovski, a Canadian whose parents are from North Macedonia, has long been a booster of the country. He also co-founded an IT outsourcing firm that employs software developers in North Macedonia and that has provided services to Trump Media. ProPublica previously reported that Trump Media has contracted with Pavlovski’s outsourcing firm in the country and secured a special visa for a Macedonian coder who is now chief technology officer of the company.
In a quarterly investor call last month, Pavlovski said he met the Macedonian prime minister “multiple times” and that they “discussed the possibility of Rumble Cloud’s direct involvement in their country’s digital transformation.”
“To our delight, Prime Minister Mickoski recently publicly shared his enthusiasm for the possibility of a partnership with Rumble, an exciting sign for all of us at the company,” he added.
Pavlovski compared Rumble’s possible role in North Macedonia to a $500 million tech services deal announced last year between El Salvador and Google.
Trump Media’s business is closely intertwined with Rumble, which provides the former president’s company with ad sale services and cloud services that are “immune to cancel culture.” Rumble also has a deal reported to be worth seven figures with Trump Media board member Donald Trump Jr. for his show “Triggered.”
Trump Media established its headquarters in Sarasota, Florida, a short drive from Rumble’s U.S. headquarters. The companies are so close that Rumble staffers actually worked out of Trump Media’s offices for several months in 2022 while its own office was being renovated, according to a person familiar with the companies.
Scenes from the group’s trip to North Macedonia show the media executives being greeted almost as visiting heads of state, beginning with what Pavlovski described in an Instagram post as a “pretty cool … legit police escort” from the airport.
Images posted by the Macedonian government, members of the nationalist party that came to power following May elections, show Nunes seated across from the prime minister one day and beside the country’s president the next, meeting under an enormous tile mosaic depicting scenes from Macedonian history. The government minister in charge of “digital transformation” also hinted in a LinkedIn post at potential business dealings, saying that the “investment potential that these world-leading companies offer can revolutionize our digital infrastructure.”
North Macedonia, a landlocked country roughly the size of Vermont with a population smaller than Houston’s, declared independence amid the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991. It relies on the United States for support, including millions in foreign aid from Washington.
The U.S. has also been one of its most influential diplomatic backers. The country was admitted to NATO in large part due to U.S. support. Its neighbor to the south, Greece, had objected for years to allowing the Balkan nation into the military alliance, asserting it was appropriating classical Greek heritage with its name. The U.S. backed a deal to resolve the dispute in which the Macedonian legislature changed the country’s name in 2019 from Macedonia to North Macedonia.
The U.S. has also been advocating for North Macedonia to be welcomed into the European Union — a process that’s been stalled because of demands from another neighbor, Bulgaria, that North Macedonia has been reluctant to satisfy.
"Everyone in the Balkans wants the Americans on their side,” said Daniel Serwer, a former State Department official and Balkans expert now at Johns Hopkins. From the Macedonian government’s point of view, he said, “You’re much freer to do what you want if you have goodwill from the United States.”
The recent election of Mickoski as prime minister marks a return to power for North Macedonia’s right-leaning nationalist party VMRO-DPMNE. Experts in the region said the party sees Trump as a natural ally and as someone whose support may give them leeway to buck European demands.
Mickoski’s party has been able to rely on Republicans in the U.S. before. In 2017, VRMO members blamed political unrest in the country on the American embassy in Skopje meddling in internal politics and favoring left-leaning groups. The party’s allies successfully lobbied several Republican members of Congress to take up their cause. The lawmakers demanded answers from the State Department, which denied the allegations, then called for an investigation from the Government Accountability Office, which found that aid was properly distributed.
The Balkans have become a focal point of activity in the dealings of former top Trump officials in their years out of office.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is pursuing a pair of real estate development deals — one in Albania and one in Serbia — for his new investment firm, which is funded by the governments of Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations. Both deals have drawn criticism because of the involvement of foreign governments and the perception that helping Kushner’s business could be a way to gain favor in a second Trump administration.
Another former Trump official, Richard Grenell, has been working with Kushner on the Balkans deals, The New York Times reported earlier this year. When Trump was in the White House, Grenell was ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence, as well as a special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo. In the years since, Grenell has become a semi-official envoy for Trump, meeting and seeking to help foreign officials with right-wing parties around the globe.
Last month, just a few weeks after the Trump Media and Rumble executives’ visit to North Macedonia, Grenell arrived in Skopje where he, too, met with the new prime minister. Among the topics discussed was the desire for more foreign capital in the country, in particular the potential for U.S. investment in a massive hydropower project.
There’s no evidence Grenell’s trip was connected to the Trump Media visit. Grenell didn’t respond to questions.
Do you have any information about Trump Media or its partners that we should know? Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240. Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217.
