Attention in Washington, D.C., is turning to who will rise in President Donald Trump’s administration after Republicans endured a midterms thrashing Tuesday night. One name keeps surfacing: Sergio Gor, the U.S. ambassador to India.
Gor, a former top White House aide and close Trump ally, has been laying the groundwork for a major promotion in the aftermath of the midterm elections, according to 10 people familiar with internal conversations.
Well-connected, with direct access to Trump, Gor has had growing involvement in high-level meetings that’s given him influence well beyond his ambassadorship. He’s seen as a key power broker between Washington and much of Asia, and as a confidante to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The former head of the White House’s Office of Presidential Personnel maintains relationships across the Trump administration, having played a key role in the vetting and appointment of thousands of officials.
Now, Gor is being discussed in Trump’s circles as a candidate for senior administration positions for the second half of the president’s term. There’s also a widespread and rapidly circulating understanding among State Department officials that Gor is interested in such a promotion.
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“He wants more of a forward-facing role,” said a U.S. official familiar with internal discussions.
Sources familiar with internal conversations said they’ve heard Gor’s name come up as a possibility for a number of powerful jobs, including White House chief of staff and taking over for Rubio as Secretary of State.
Neither Rubio nor White House chief of staff Susie Wiles have publicly indicated any intention of leaving the administration. Still, some at State and in Republican political circles believe Rubio may leave the Cabinet to prepare for a future run for president in 2028 or 2032. Wiles’ position is also widely seen as at risk in Trump’s orbit.
Some of the sources said Gor would also be interested in a different promotion within the State Department, such as replacing Deputy Secretary Chris Landau. Landau has told colleagues he would leave after the midterms if Republicans lost control of Congress, in anticipation of grueling investigations, according to a source who heard the comment.
Gor denied that he has any interest in another job and said he never discussed taking another role with anyone.
“This story is complete and total bullshit,” Gor told The Washington Sun. “Secretary Marco Rubio has proven to be the most qualified, accomplished and greatest secretary of state in history. He is irreplaceable, and a dear friend who I have the joy of working with every day as U.S. ambassador to India — a true honor of a lifetime. I have zero interest in any other role.”
Dylan Johnson, State’s assistant secretary for global public affairs, also denied that Gor is looking for a new role.
“Secretary Rubio and Ambassador Gor have a great working relationship and personal friendship,” Johnson said. “These are made-up rumors from anonymous sources. We look forward to revisiting this ‘reporting’ in a few weeks when it is revealed as the baseless fake news that it is.”
A White House official called the story “fake” and based on sources who “know nothing.”
“Ambassador Gor has no interest in any other role and believes both Susie Wiles and Secretary Marco Rubio are doing a phenomenal job,” the official said.
Gor’s access to Trump and expanding diplomatic portfolio has raised his profile beyond India. The president “loves the guy,” a Trump adviser told The Sun. “He was the one guy in the wilderness years who was bringing him deals instead of asking for things.”
As ambassador, Gor has helped facilitate a series of high-level visits to India, including by Rubio, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and then-Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, and he’s used his dual role as ambassador and special envoy to participate in meetings with senior foreign officials outside India, including Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
“Ambassador Gor appears at times to be functioning as a deputy secretary,” said Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It’s good for India; he has helped turn around the relationship a lot because he has a direct line to the White House.”
Rubio has visited India twice this year. The two men also appeared side by side in Atlanta at a G20 summit last week, and they’ve traveled together frequently since Gor’s appointment.
A second current State Department official described Gor as “giddy for the limelight” during major international events. The officials cited in this story spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
Gor was central to Rubio’s trip to Uzbekistan last month, part of a Trump administration effort to draw the U.S. closer to Central Asian countries with significant natural resources. He was born in the country when it was part of the Soviet Union (a fact he previously declined to acknowledge), and in addition to being ambassador, he serves as a U.S. special envoy for South and Central Asia.
Two sources familiar with Gor’s leadership said he reflects Trump’s approach to foreign affairs, noting he is hyper-focused on dealmaking and heavily involved in supporting U.S. businesses. In Central Asia, one U.S. official said, “It’s easy to play there and get deliverables because of how the Central Asians play. It’s very transaction-based.”
Trump’s sons are involved in a company planning to tap reserves of tungsten, a valuable metal, in Kazakhstan, whose leader Gor brought to the White House for a meeting with Trump and other Central Asian heads of state.
Gor, a Trump campaign aide in 2024, has previously been tied to the business interests of the president’s family. He publishes Trump’s books through his company and is particularly close with Donald Trump Jr. President Trump hosted a swearing-in ceremony for Gor in the Oval Office before the ambassador left for India, calling Gor a “great guy” and saying he was “very proud” of him.
In Delhi, where has served since November 2025, Gor has led the embassy with an unusual degree of control, according to two people familiar with the operations there. Gor has pushed out both career State employees and locally employed staff, and has gotten involved in all levels of personnel decisions in a manner not typical for an ambassador at an embassy of that size.
He also made waves when he canceled an $850 million construction project at the Delhi embassy after the first Trump administration had already broken ground for the overhaul.
Earlier this year, Rubio told The New York Times Gor’s “access to the president” made him “an enormous asset for both the host country and for us at the State Department.”
Whether those connections would be enough to land Gor a potential Senate-confirmed Cabinet position is less clear. Every Democrat voted against his ambassadorial confirmation as part of a larger package of nominees.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested Gor’s choices have displeased lawmakers and deserve scrutiny in a statement to The Sun. “Our embassy reflects our relationship with India, and cancelling the new Chancery in Delhi does not reflect the depth and breadth of our strong bilateral relationship, which has broad bipartisan support in Congress,” said Meeks, who will likely chair the committee in the new Congress starting in January. “I intend to closely examine how the Department threw away more than half a billion dollars without informing Congress, as well as the role of Special Envoys who have been operating without accountability.”
Gor previously worked for about a decade on Capitol Hill, primarily for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). At the White House personnel office, Gor was responsible for identifying and vetting candidates for thousands of political appointment roles across government. While there, he publicly clashed with then-Trump adviser Elon Musk.
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