The remarkable rise of an Australian deputy mayor to a plum Trump job
US President Donald Trump has heaped praise on Sydney-born self-described “Alpha Male” Nick Adams, lauding his “love of, and devotion to, our Great Country” as he confirmed his appointment as US ambassador to Malaysia.
The appointment caps the remarkable rise of the University of Sydney graduate who, at 21, became the youngest deputy mayor in Australian history, before moving to the US, where he rose to prominence as a conservative commentator, author and one of Trump’s most loyal and outspoken supporters.
Nick Adams in Beverly Hills, California, in 2024.Credit: The Washington Post via Getty Images
After the ambassadorial appointment was sent to the Senate for confirmation on Wednesday, Trump personally announced his nomination in a post to Truth Social, writing that Adams was an “incredible patriot” and “very successful entrepreneur”.
“Nick graduated from the University of Sydney and, since then, has made it his life’s mission to extol the Virtues of American Greatness. Congratulations Nick!” the post read.
Credit: Matt Golding
Adams’ effusive support of Trump on X, and in his regular appearances on Fox News shows, drew the president’s attention, with his ascendance making him the latest conservative pundit without relevant experience to be given a role in the Trump administration.
The New York Times has reported that Adams has a history of making Islamophobic remarks, including denigrating Trump’s rivals as supporters of Islam and speaking out against purported efforts to “teach Islam in schools”. Malaysia is a Muslim-majority country.
Born Nicholas Adamopoulos in Sydney in 1984, Adams has written that he battled a neuroblastoma in his childhood, undergoing extensive cancer treatment. In his books, he describes his father as the “ultimate alpha male”, recounting how he never said “I love you” and crediting him with pushing his son to achieve greatness.
He attended Trinity Grammar School, in Sydney’s inner west, before gaining a bachelor of media and communications from the University of Sydney.
Adams’ first foray into politics came when he was elected to Ashfield Council in 2004 on the Liberal Party ticket, before being appointed Australia’s youngest deputy mayor the following year.
The then-Ashfield councillor Nick Adams at the University of Sydney’s 2005 O-Week.Credit: Jon Reid
His five years on the council were marked by outlandish stories, like his campaign to stop the removal of a portrait of the Queen from the council’s chambers, and a proposal to cull all the pigeons in Ashfield to prevent the spread of avian flu.
“Ashfield should be inhospitable to pigeons,” he said at a council meeting.
“I’m not an expert. I’m not an accountant. I’m certainly not a pest controller. Don’t ask me about procedure. What I would like to see is no pigeons in our area.”
He was censured by his fellow councillors in 2006 for spending thousands of dollars of council funds on personal phone calls and Cabcharges, the Inner West Weekly reported. Adams later repaid the council more than $4000.
Adams was suspended from the Liberal Party in 2009 after he verbally abused a journalist. Then-Network Ten journalist Brett Mason was reporting on Adams’ absences from council meetings while he travelled to the US to join the conservative speaking circuit.
Mason, who until recently was Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s media director, was filming a piece to camera outside Ashfield Council’s chambers when Adams approached, ABC’s Media Watch reported at the time.
“I would just like to say that Brett Mason is a [expletive] good-for-nothing [expletive]. Thank you,” Adams said into the camera.
He resigned from the Liberal Party and left the council in the same year, later working for a group called the Halloween Institute, which was later disgraced when Media Watch revealed protesters at a rally calling for Halloween to become a national holiday in Australia were paid actors.
Adams left Australia in 2012, telling the Herald he had moved to the US because he “love[s] guns, hot dogs, chicken fried steak, barbecue, cheerleaders, American football, small-town parades, beauty pageants, pick-up trucks, muscle cars and 16-lane freeways lined with supersized American flags”.
Adams secured frequent spots on conservative talk show Fox and Friends and it wasn’t long until he caught the attention of the president.
Trump first publicly praised Adams in March 2017, calling his 2015 book Green Card Warrior: My Quest for Legal Immigration in an Illegals’ System a “must-read”. He followed it up with another endorsement in August 2017, tweeting about Adams’ book, Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness.
By the time Adams became a naturalised citizen in 2021, he was a full-time pundit and a favourite of Trump, who in 2020 appointed him to the board of Washington’s Woodrow Wilson Centre, a congressionally chartered global affairs think tank.
During his campaign to return to the presidency, Trump named Adams an official campaign surrogate, meaning he was endorsed to speak publicly on behalf of a candidate or elected official.
Adams’ outspoken, overblown style has led many to wonder if his commentary is intended to be satirical.
In a 2024 Washington Post profile, journalist Ben Terris writes Adams’ support for MAGA is “so over-the-top, so uncanny that it almost seems like performance art”.
Adams’ activity on X, where his handle once declared he is an “Alpha Male”, exemplifies this approach.
A 2023 post including a long list of platitudes such as “I am pursued by copious amounts of women”, “I am wildly successful” and “I have the physique of a Greek God”, concludes with the line: “They hate this.”
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