Amos J. Hochstein (born January 4, 1973) is an American diplomat, businessman, and former lobbyist. He was a top national and economic security official in the Biden administration. Hochstein has worked in the U.S. Congress, has testified before congressional panels and has served in the Barack Obama administration under Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry. He was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in 2011 and as Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs in 2013. In 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Hochstein to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources but the Senate did not act on the nomination. While at the State Department, Hochstein worked as a close advisor to Vice President Biden. He served in the administration from 2011 to 2017.
In March 2017, Hochstein joined Tellurian, a private Houston-based LNG company, where he served as senior vice president for marketing until his departure in September 2020. He is a former member of the supervisory board of Ukraine's Naftogaz, from which he resigned in October 2020, writing an opinion piece that highlighted the return of sabotage in the form of corrupt forces. Hochstein has served on the boards of the Atlantic Council and U.S.-India Business Council.
On August 10, 2021, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that he would be appointing Hochstein as the senior advisor for energy security, and he was subsequently appointed special presidential coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security. He also led Biden's Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, and advised the president on AI policy and infrastructure.
In March 2025, Hochstein became a managing partner at the investment firm TWG Global to bring his experience developing energy and infrastructure to support the company's artificial intelligence investments.
Early life Hochstein was born in Jerusalem, the child of American Jewish immigrants to Israel. He studied at Yeshivat Netiv Meir High School and the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces and served in Armored Corps. Following his service, he left Israel and moved to New York City to work at Bankers Trust. While Hochstein's immediate family continue to live in Israel, he does not maintain dual citizenship, having renounced his Israeli citizenship.
Career Hochstein was a foreign policy adviser to Democratic Party members of the U.S. government House Foreign Affairs Committee from 1994 to January 2001."Four years after leaving post, will Dan Shapiro return as old-new US ambassador?", Times of Israel, Tal Schneider (Jan 20, 2021)
Partner at TWG Global Hochstein became a managing partner at TWG Global in March 2025. In his role he will support the investment strategy into energy and infrastructure as part of the firm's larger plans for AI growth and partnerships.
Advising Congress On Capitol Hill, Hochstein first served on the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs staff from 1994. In subsequent years he served in a variety of senior level positions, including the House International Relations Committee, where he served as Senior Policy Advisor. In 1997, he was sent to North Korea to report on the country's economic and military status as well as the progress and opportunities for humanitarian aid efforts.
Later, Hochstein served as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Hochstein first served as the principal Democratic staff person on the Economic Policy, Trade & Environment Subcommittee where he oversaw work authorizing Ex-Im Bank, OPIC and USTDA, as well as drafting legislation on export controls and trade-related multilateral organizations and regimes.
Hochstein also worked as a Senior Policy Advisor to then-Governor Mark Warner, and later as Policy Director for Senator Chris Dodd. He joined Dodd's team in the beginning of 2007 and was the Policy Director during his 2008 Presidential campaign.
Hochstein was also an aide to Representative Sam Gejdenson. During his time on Capitol Hill, Hochstein travelled to Iraq and was involved in U.S. back-channel diplomatic discussions to potentially lift U.S. economic sanctions in exchange for the potential resettlement of several thousand Palestinian refugees in Central Iraq. Hochstein argued that the economic sanctions had to be maintained while conceding that it was necessary to "humanise" those sanctions.
Cassidy & Associates Hochstein later moved to the private sector as Executive Vice President of International Operations at Cassidy & Associates. Throughout his career, he was a counselor and lobbyist for both domestic and international oil and gas companies, as well as companies focusing on renewable energy. In this capacity, he assisted corporations in assessing potential new markets and the development of alternative sources of power.
Equatorial Guinea While employed at Cassidy & Associates, Hochstein also worked on the account of the president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa's longest-serving dictator, to improve relations with the United States. In his 2012 book Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, journalist Steve Coll recounts that, while Hochstein was initially uncomfortable with the Equatorial Guinea account, he assisted, together with the U.S. National Security Council, in the development of a "road map" of political changes that Equatorial Guinea would have to implement in order prove their sincerity and improve relations with the U.S. The road map involved prisoner releases, along with substantial public investments in health care and education, and Hochstein coordinated communications about these points with Equatorial Guinea's leadership and the State Department.
Hochstein and others, among them Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz, said they were convinced of Obiang's will to change and adapt. Hochstein defended the Obiang regime in an interview with The Washington Post, stating that democratization in countries like Equatorial Guinea must be supported, and that Western states cannot expect changes of long-standing political realities to happen overnight. Nevertheless, Equatorial Guinea under the Obiang regime remains by many accounts one of the world's least free countries. Hochstein eventually resigned from the lobbying account, but continued to work for Cassidy until 2006.
Energy diplomat for the Obama administration Hochstein began working at the U.S. Department of State in 2011, joining the newly formed Bureau of Energy Resources. Serving as deputy to Special Envoy Carlos Pascual, Hochstein worked to help Ukraine find new supplies of natural gas in the wake of the 2014 Russian occupation of Crimea.
He oversaw the Office of Middle East, Asia and Europe, the Western Hemisphere and Africa. Hochstein led the energy related diplomacy efforts.
Special envoy and coordinator of international energy affairs On August 1, 2014, Hochstein succeeded Carlos Pascual as acting Special Envoy and Coordinator of International Energy Affairs, and was permanently appointed to the position later in the year by Secretary Kerry. As the Special Envoy, Hochstein oversaw the Bureau of Energy Resources and advised Secretary of State John Kerry on global energy security and diplomacy, as well as integration of renewable and clean energy and related security matters. He also worked closely with officials at the White House's National Security Council and other government agencies.
In his capacity as the U.S.'s Chief Energy Diplomat, Hochstein had an important role in shaping foreign energy and security policy and worked closely with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, accompanying him on international travel and advancing energy as a key U.S. foreign policy tool. Hochstein and Biden worked together on the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative, Central America Energy Security Task Force, Cyprus and East Mediterranean, as well as securing Ukraine and Europe from Russian energy dominance.
Hochstein encouraged European countries to find new oil, gas, coal, and nuclear sources, to alleviate their dependence on Russian energy. In response to President Vladimir Putin's plans for new gas pipelines, including Nord Stream 2 via the Baltic Sea and TurkStream via the Black Sea, to bypass an existing transit coordinator through Ukraine towards Greece, Italy and Germany, Hochstein described the plans as "political projects that have questionable economic value" to the European energy market. He has also stated that the U.S.'s position isn't to exclude Russia from the European market entirely, but rather that Russia should be an equal player, remarking that "European countries should be able to choose their supplier and force their suppliers to compete for their business. That is what is good for energy security of Europe, economic security and ultimately for the national security of those countries involved." In November 2021, he accused Russia of taking advantage of the European energy crisis and making no effort to alleviate the situation.
Hochstein has also been involved in the U.S. front against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, specifically cutting their oil revenues by disrupting their production lines. Hochstein oversaw the U.S. efforts to cripple Islamic State's energy business by weakening oil trade between ISIS, the Syrian government and other parties. His team coordinated with the U.S. Department of Defense to determine targets. Airstrikes subsequently blew up over 1,000 tanker trucks and other key targets. In a testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Hochstein described the military actions as "not only more bombings, but a different kind of bombing."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited Hochstein's work as helping to provide an incentive for the renewed relationship between Israel and Turkey. This followed his work to revive efforts to settle maritime border dispute between Lebanon and Israel. At the conclusion of his visit, Hochstein made statements stressing his visit was to discuss delayed gas exploration in Lebanon. In October 2022, he managed to negotiate a maritime deal between Lebanon and Israel following months of negotiations, settling the Israeli–Lebanese maritime border dispute. Previous to that in 2014, Hochstein helped “pave the way” for the $500 million natural gas agreement between Israel and Jordan visiting Jordan 14 times and was, alongside Israel's former president Shimon Peres, a "key broker" for the gas export deal. This agreement concluded an effort that Secretary of State Clinton began in 2011.
In response to Russian officials claiming that the Turkish government was illegally buying oil from the Islamic State, Hochstein dismissed these claims, saying that "I do not believe there is significant smuggling between ISIL-controlled areas and Turkey of oil of any significant volume."
Hochstein has also worked on multilateral energy affairs, meeting with Urban Rusnák, Secretary-General of the Energy Charter Conference, to discuss progress on the Energy Charter Process, discussing the advance of clean energy investments and energy security with government officials in India and meeting several other state leaders and government officials to coordinate energy and security matters with states like Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia and other states in the Middle East.
Assistant secretary of state for energy resources