Turhan Mildon spent years collecting powerful friends on three continents, and in Venezuela, those friendships paid off in a big way.
The 29-year-old Turkish businessman was running the country’s state-owned cement plants, a deal tied to some of the most connected men in Nicolás Maduro’s government.
Then the floor gave out. U.S. forces captured Maduro in January, his most important ally landed behind bars, and by June, Venezuela’s new leadership had signed an order taking the cement contract away from him.
On paper, his moneymaker was finished. But somewhere between losing his protectors and walking down the aisle with one of Donald Trump’s fiercest defenders, Mildon’s luck flipped, and according to a new report, the woman now running Venezuela took notice.
The New York Times published an investigation on Oct. 12 tracing how Mildon, CEO of Turkish conglomerate Miller Holding, built his empire on political access, and how his whirlwind romance with Trump’s former personal lawyer, Alina Habba, may have kept it alive.
Mildon’s rise began at home. In 2021, he married the daughter of a construction magnate close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Times reported. He later became an adviser to Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi before turning up in Caracas in late 2023.
There, he grew close to Alex Saab, a Colombian-born businessman U.S. prosecutors had accused of laundering money siphoned from Venezuela, who by then was Maduro’s industry minister. In March 2025, Mildon landed the deal to run the state’s cement plants. His spokesman insists it was won in a bid against four other companies.
By June 2025, with his first marriage over, Mildon was engaged to María Eugenia Ceballos, daughter of Adm. Remigio Ceballos, a top Maduro-era military commander under U.S. sanctions.
Maduro’s capture blew all of that up. Delcy Rodríguez, his former vice president, took over as interim leader with Washington’s backing and pushed Saab out of the cabinet within weeks. Saab was arrested in February and later sent to the U.S.
Rodríguez’s government ordered an audit of Mildon’s plants amid complaints that production hadn’t risen, prices hadn’t dropped and contractors were stuck with unpaid bills. In June, according to an order the Times reviewed, she revoked his contract for missing investment targets.
But Mildon already had a new card to play. He’d met Habba at a Kennedy Center event in late 2025, and the two began dating early this year, his spokesman said.
Two people close to Rodríguez told the Times the relationship caught her attention once she learned Mildon was serious with a woman who could reach Trump directly. Then she put her own order on ice.
The cancellation stalled, the plants kept humming and the money kept flowing to the man Venezuela had just tried to cut loose.
On Sept. 26, the couple wed at Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria in a celebration pegged at $10 million. FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Todd Blanche were among the guests, and Nelly performed. Mildon has insisted “this marriage has no political motivation,” The Daily Beast reported, via Yahoo News.
Habba told the Times she has never gone to the White House or the administration on her husband’s behalf, and that he would never ask her to. White House officials also said she hadn’t discussed his business with Trump.
Mildon’s spokesman disputed the timeline, claiming the audit never happened and the company wasn’t told about the termination until Oct. 8. The plants are still running, but the revocation hasn’t been reversed.
Mildon’s own boasts aren’t helping. The Times found he told Forbes Türkiye his Venezuelan operation churned out 4.5 million tons of cement a year, roughly three times what the entire country produces, according to data the paper reviewed. His spokesman says he was misquoted.
Now the fallout has reached Trump’s inner circle. According to Mediate, Habba reportedly went to the Oval Office last week and accused Ric Grenell, the Trump envoy who helped usher Mildon into MAGA circles and later led the Kennedy Center, of never depositing a roughly $5.6 million donation her husband believed he’d made to the arts center.
Grenell called the claim “absurd.” Kennedy Center records reportedly showed Mildon only owed a $270,000 pledge, which he paid Tuesday.
The center has been a sore spot for Trump for months, especially after a federal judge ordered his name removed from the building.
As for Habba, controversy has followed her for years. She stepped down as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor in December after courts ruled she was serving unlawfully, and she once claimed she’d rather be pretty than smart.
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