Australian ‘alpha male’ Nick Adams dumped as Trump’s ambassador to Malaysia

Washington: US President Donald Trump has dumped controversial Australian-American Nick Adams as his nominee to be ambassador to Malaysia, but the self-described “alpha male” says he has been promoted to a new role that will soon be revealed.

Meanwhile, Trump is yet to nominate an ambassador to Australia after 13 months in the Oval Office.

Adams – a MAGA diehard and author, who once served on a Sydney council – was named as Trump’s ambassador to Malaysia last July, but his nomination was never confirmed by the Senate, and lapsed at the end of the year, as per procedure.

Adams was absent from a long list of nominations resubmitted to the Senate in January, including prospective ambassadors to Hungary, Norway and the Philippines. Nor was he on another list submitted this month.

Reached by email, Adams confirmed that would not become US ambassador to Malaysia, but pointed to a new role he said would be announced soon.

“Brilliant detective work, Mick! I’ve been promoted from the role of Ambassador!” he told this masthead.

“More details on that will come this upcoming week. I’m sure you’ll see it if you’re looking out for it. You might want to consider waiting a few days so you can break the news to your dozens of readers. Good luck on your hit piece, son.”

Adams did not respond to further questions about his next job. But he teased his social media followers that a “Major Announcement” was coming. The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Adams was born in Sydney and, while a Young Liberal at Sydney University, was elected to the then Ashfield Council. At 21, he became the youngest deputy mayor in Australian history.

While on council, he sought to exterminate pigeons from Ashfield to protect against bird flu, and lobbied the state government to ban neighbourhood noise from lawnmowers and leaf blowers on weekend afternoons.

Adams later moved to the US, becoming a naturalised American citizen and a diehard Trump enthusiast. He founded a non-profit organisation called the Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness, which says it teaches “the [nation’s] founding documents and American values to K-12 students”.

He also attracted attention for outlandish statements on social media, particularly his identity as an “alpha male” and defence of certain traits he claimed as being traditionally masculine.

“Alpha males are an endangered species in America and this is a national security crisis,” he said in 2022. In a 2023 video, he stomped on a packet of M&Ms in Times Square after the manufacturer Mars announced packaging that depicted female M&Ms.

“Feminist M&Ms … It is outrageous, it is disgusting, and it must not stand,” Adams said in the video. “Any male that buys a packet of M&Ms from today forward must hand in their man card because they are a soft, woke, beat-up male feminist who has serious, serious problems.”

In 2024, he told an audience of young Republicans, as reported by The Washington Post: “Never apologise. Never mask up. Never pick up the Fortnite controller. It starts with the Fortnite controller and boneless chicken wings, and ends in gender pronouns and communism. We don’t want that.”

Adams has also made disparaging comments about Islam and the Palestinian cause, causing alarm in Muslim-majority Malaysia upon his nomination.

In his 2016 book Retaking America, he indulged the idea of interning Muslims, saying the policy should be discussed because of “significant evidence of disloyalty … both on the individual and mosque level”.

Dozens protested Adams’ nomination outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur in July, carrying signs accusing him of being “anti-Islam and pro-Zionist”.

Trump has yet to appoint an ambassador to Australia. When questioned by this masthead in October, he said he had one or two people in mind, but wanted to appoint somebody Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would like.

“Here’s the good news, everybody wants to be ambassador to Australia,” Trump said at the time.

In his first term, Trump took until February of his second year to name an ambassador to Canberra, Admiral Harry Harris, who was then renominated to become ambassador to South Korea.

Trump then nominated Arthur Culvahouse in November of that year, and he was confirmed by the Senate in January 2019 – two years after Trump took office.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.