Tilman Fertitta Makes His First Comments On Donald Trump Ambassador to Italy Nod, Embraces the Chance to Serve and the Confirmation Process

Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta is officially Donald Trump’s hand selected pick to be the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, getting the nod as expected four days before Christmas. Even the Rockets owner and school-transforming University of Houston Board of Regents chairman who’s seemingly done it all doesn’t have many days as monumental as this.

That is reflected in Fertitta’s first comments on being Trump’s pick.

“It is an honor to be nominated to serve my country as Ambassador to Italy and I look forward to the process ahead,” Fertitta tells PaperCity in a text. “Italy is such an extraordinary country with its wonderful, people, culture and history and its strategic importance to the United States of America.”

Fertitta makes it clear he is going to embrace the Senate confirmation process that awaits. All U.S. ambassadors must be confirmed by the Senate. Fertitta may be the wealthiest man in Houston now (by Forbes’ analysis), but he started working at his dad Vic Fertitta’s Pier 23 seafood restaurant in Galveston as a teen with Vic Fertitta one of the proudest Italian-Americans you’re ever going to meet.

Now his son Tilman Fertitta is the president elect’s pick to be the U.S. Ambassador to Italy. It’s been quite a journey just since Tilman Fertitta and his dad traveled around the country, visiting the best steakhouses in America on a research mission, before Tilman opened the first Vic & Anthony’s steakhouse in downtown Houston back in 2002.

Having built his hospitality, restaurant, casino and sports empire to an almost unimaginable level since then, Tilman Fertitta is embracing the opportunity to now serve his country at age 67 in a diplomatic role. In his own statement on nominating Fertitta, Donald Trump praised Fertitta’s “long history of giving back to the community through numerous philanthropic initiatives.”

“Tilman is an accomplished businessman, who has founded and built one of our Country’s premier entertainment and real estate companies, employing approximately 50,000 Americans,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, the social media platform owned by the Trump Media & Technology Group.

When New York Jets owner Woody Johnson accepted a U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom nod from Trump during the incoming president’s first term in the White House, he had to step away from the NFL team and have his brother run the Jets for several years. (These ambassadorships are on-site, in the foreign country roles.)

Fertitta’s efforts have helped put the Houston Rockets and University of Houston both in better positions than they have been in years with the rising Rockets holding one of the best young rosters in the NBA and UH securely in the Power 4 Big 12 conference (thanks to Fertitta refusing to allow the university he believes in to be left out again). Now the Houston proud billionaire will be working to help his country in an overseas role.

Check out some of PaperCity Houston’s other stories on Tilman Fertitta:

University of Houston officials talk about Fertitta being Donald Trump’s expected ambassador pick

Tilman Fertitta On the Rockets’ Rise

Tilman’s World: The Life Of Houston’s Most Famous Billionaire — a Rare Inside Look