Paolo Zampolli, a diplomat close to Trump, is out at the Department of State: His dismissal comes hours after his email war against Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau was revealed

Paolo Zampolli, a friend of President Donald Trump for decades and the man who introduced him to Melania, was removed from his position as State Department special envoy on Thursday, according to an ABC News report. The news broke the same day details emerged about the nearly year-long conflict he had with Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau.

A U.S. official confirmed the departure to journalist Shannon Kingston, who cited a source within the Trump administration. "Paolo was notified today that his status as an envoy has been terminated and he is no longer a government employee," the source said.

Hours before the revelation, Politico published an exclusive report revealing a series of emails between Zampolli and Landau in which they were involved in a workplace dispute, accused each other of overstepping their authority, and even threatened to sue one another.

An unusual feud within the Department of State

Zampolli is an unusual official. A former modeling agent, he represented Melania in New York in the 1990s and introduced her to Trump at a party. During his first term, Trump appointed him to the Kennedy Center board and, currently, as special representative for global partnerships, a position that, according to the notification sent to Congress, was primarily intended to represent the United States at cultural events.

That specific role was the source of the conflict between Zampolli and Landau.

According to emails reviewed by Politico, Landau repeatedly urged him to stick to cultural diplomacy, a directive Zampolli repeatedly failed to follow, as evidenced by his social media posts.

"I am hereby ordering you–once again–to immediately stop all work on ANY issues not directly tied to cultural diplomacy," he wrote to him in November 2025. In other messages, with up to 16 officials copied in, he warned him that he could face disciplinary sanctions, dismissal, and legal liability, and informed him that he would report his insubordination to the Office of Presidential Personnel.

Zampolli's social media accounts show that his agenda extended beyond cultural matters. He posted about meetings with Romania's Minister of Energy, efforts to advance nuclear energy in Hungary, and even conversations with an Argentine official about sending astronauts from that country into space. In the emails, he defended his work and highlighted his role in a Boeing deal with Uzbekistan. In a conversation with Politico, he insisted that he answered only to Trump: "The only person that can give me this job and can terminate me is the president of America."

The dispute even transcended internal barriers within the Department of State in February, when Zampolli visited the Balkans; the trip included a meeting with the Republika Srpska head of government. At that time, Landau wrote to Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Đurić to clarify that the envoy had no authority to speak on behalf of the government outside the cultural sphere.

In June, Zampolli took matters into his own hands in an attempt to undermine Landau. First, he asked the Department of State inspector general to investigate the deputy secretary after accusing him, without evidence, of being the source of a New York Times article that, he claimed, harmed the first lady and her family.

The deputy secretary categorically denied the accusation in an internal email: "I have no idea what you are talking about and categorically deny being the source of anything."

Then, in July, Zampolli sent Dan Scavino, director of presidential personnel, an Axios report alleging that Landau had acted on his own regarding plans by Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado to return to Venezuela. In the email, Zampolli presented the article as an example of how the deputy secretary was undermining the president's and Senator Marco Rubio's agenda.

However, Rubio publicly stated that the U.S. is not preventing Machado's return to Venezuela.

Landau did not respond to Politico's inquiries. A Department of State spokesperson simply noted that the deputy secretary works to advance Trump and Rubio's foreign policy agenda, including overseeing special envoys.