- Source: Massad Boulos
Massad Boulos (Arabic: مسعد بولس; born 1971) is a Lebanese-American businessman and political associate of Donald Trump. He is the father of Michael Boulos and the father-in-law of Trump's daughter Tiffany. He supported Trump's successful presidential campaign in the 2024 United States presidential election, and canvassed for the support of Arab Americans, particularly in Michigan.
Boulos sells trucks at a small company owned by his father-in-law Michel Zouhair Fadoul in Nigeria. He rose to prominence in 2018 when his son began to date Tiffany Trump. In December 2024, Trump designated Boulos his Middle East advisor.
Early life
Boulos was born to a Greek Orthodox family in Kfaraakka, Koura, Lebanon (his surname meaning the apostle "Paul" in Arabic). Both his father and grandfather were figures in Lebanese politics and his father-in-law was a key funder of the Free Patriotic Movement.
He moved to Texas as a teenager. He graduated in 1993 from University of Houston-Downtown with a bachelor of business administration degree. He was described (by Donald Trump) as "an accomplished lawyer" having obtained a law degree from the University of Houston, but the university has no record of it. No public evidence has been found that Boulos is licensed as a lawyer in any of the countries where he has claimed to be a citizen: United States, Nigeria, Lebanon, or France.
Career
= In business
=After completing his education, Boulos moved to Nigeria to work for a company his father-in-law owned. SCOA Nigeria PLC is a small trucking and heavy machinery dealership. Its shares trade for about two Nigerian naira, roughly a tenth of a US cent, a penny stock with a market capitalization worth about $865,000 as of 2024. Boulos’s personal stake is worth just $1.53 according to the company's latest annual report (which is partly printed in Comic Sans). Following Trump's announcement that he would appoint Boulos as a presidential advisor (see § US politics), he was "reported to have significant discrepancies between his public profile and documented business background". When asked by the New York Times to confirm the multibillion-dollar valuation of Boulos Enterprises, he did so, but he later claimed he did not mean that he was actually associated with or owned Boulos Enterprises, and that he did not correct the reporter's impression because he "made a practice of not commenting on his businesses"; Boulos Enterprises is owned by another family of the same surname.
= Lebanese politics
=Boulos has links to Christian politicians and parties in Lebanon, including Suleiman Frangieh and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) both of which are Christian allies of Hezbollah but maintained talks with opposition parties like the Lebanese Forces. According to Aron Lund, quoting a report in As-Safir, Boulos began his political career as an ally of Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, and represented it in Nigeria, where Boulos did business. Boulos remained allied to Aoun after he agreed an alliance with Hezbollah. Boulos initially stood for parliament in Koura, but withdrew for another list involving the FPM, Marada (Frangieh's party), and the communists. In 2009, the FPM shortlisted him, but Aoun eventually chose another candidate. By 2018, he was a supporter of Frangieh's Marada. Aron Lund, an analyst at the Century Foundation, writes that his career "does not exactly indicate a firm commitment to either side in Lebanese or regional politics", and that his appointment suggests that Trump's Middle East policy "will often be more readily understood in light of the personalities orbiting Mar-a-Lago [a Trump-owned resort] than through an ideological prism or in terms of U.S. national interest."
= US politics
=During the 2024 US presidential elections, Boulos campaigned for Trump in Muslim and Arab communities with Bishara Bahbah, who founded Arabs for Trump, and Richard Grenell. He sought to portray Trump as supportive of "global peace", according to Bahbah.
Boulos has acted as an intermediary between the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas and Trump.
In December 2024 Boulos told Le Point that the 2024 Israel–Lebanon ceasefire agreement, including the requirement that Hezbollah should disarm, applied to the whole of Lebanon, not just areas south of the Litani river.
Personal life
Boulos holds Lebanese, Nigerian, French and American citizenship.
He married Sarah Fadoul Boulos, who was born in Burkina Faso. Circa 1986, she lived in Houston, Texas, and was a student at Houston Baptist University until 1996, then moved to Lagos, Nigeria. She is a dance instructor who in 2005 founded the aspirationally named Society for the Performing Arts in Nigeria as a tiny studio in her garage. More recently, she has been a franchisee of Creative Education International (CrEd) Lagos Island. As of 2020, she worked at La Pointe Delicatessen in Victoria Island, Lagos.
Together they have four children. In 2022, their son Michael married Tiffany Trump, daughter of Donald Trump. Another son, Fares, is an actor who played a brief non-speaking role in The Crown.
References
See also
Boulos Enterprises