MEDC chief: ‘I was not aware’ of $20M state business grant caught in probe

• The MEDC followed legislative rules on compliance monitoring of a $20 million state grant now at the center of embezzlement investigation, its CEO said
• Quentin Messer Jr. said he's 'never been lobbied' by MEDC executive committee members about the grant to Fay Beydoun
• The comments came after an MEDC board meeting that did not address the controversy in public session

TRAVERSE CITY — The CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. is defending the agency’s handling of a $20 million state grant at the heart of an embezzlement investigation. 

Quentin Messer Jr. said Tuesday that the MEDC followed legislative direction in monitoring the grant, which lawmakers awarded to former MEDC board member Fay Beydoun in 2022.

“We monitored this grant based upon the parameters that were set in the statutory guidance for the grant,” Messer said Tuesday.

The Michigan Attorney General’s office has been investigating the grant awarded to Beydoun, a donor to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The investigation included raiding the offices of the MEDC last month for records connected to the funds, which was made as an earmark in the 2022 state budget. The grant was to launch an international business accelerator, created by Beydoun; it did not exist at the time of the grant.

The MEDC did not initiate the grant, but it gave "their nod of approval as the governor requested," Beydoun wrote in an undated email to Tricia Foster, the governor's chief operating officer, ahead of the award.  "The project will be included in the supplemental budget."

Messer spoke Tuesday after a meeting of the MEDC executive committee, which gathered for its annual retreat at the Hotel Indigo on Grand Traverse Bay. 

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He said he knew Beydoun had championed entrepreneurship and business innovation.

“I was not aware,” Messer said of Beydoun’s effort to secure the earmark.

Messer emphasized that he’s “never been lobbied” by members of the MEDC executive committee, which is the public decision-making body for the MEDC. 

“What individual members of the MEDC executive committee do in their individual capacities, we have no jurisdiction,” Messer said.

“If people want to go to the Legislature directly, that’s on them,” Messer added. “I have no knowledge of it, and I'm certainly not lobbying on behalf of any member of the MEDC executive committee or any member of the public.”

The MEDC executive committee did not publicly discuss the grant or the raid Tuesday, leaving the matter unaddressed by the body charged with oversight of the MEDC. 

The MEDC canceled the grant caught in the probe in March 2025, when "unreasonable" expenses came to light after The Detroit News first reported that Beydoun had spent money on items like a $4,500 coffeemaker and a $550,000 salary to herself. While the MEDC  is seeking a portion of the grant returned, that has yet to take place, the newspaper reported. 

Messer’s statements on Tuesday follow Gov. Gretchen Whitmer saying last week that she’s “very troubled” by embezzlement allegations that followed the earmark awarded Beydoun for Global Link International business connector. 

Any grant misusing state funds “should expect to be held accountable,” Whitmer said. 

Beydoun is a Whitmer donor who filed paperwork to create Global Link International shortly before securing the state funds.

Michigan Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, a Porter Township Republican seeking the 2026 gubernatorial nomination, recently called for a federal investigation.

“Official email records confirm that Beydoun communicated directly with the governor’s office to secure the grant," Nesbitt said this month.

A longtime supporter of Democratic candidates, Beydoun hosted a 2021 fundraiser for Whitmer around the time she claimed in an email to Whitmer’s chief operating officer that the governor was helping secure funding for the project. 

Whitmer appointed Beydoun to the 15-member MEDC executive committee in April 2019. She was among 11 board members named in Whitmer’s first months as governor.

Among the board’s roles: Choosing the CEO. Beydoun participated in Messer’s hiring in May 2021.  Messer told Bridge on Tuesday he has not felt pressure connected to grants from any member of the MEDC executive committee or the governor’s office. 

In some of his first public comments about the grant and subsequent investigation, Messer emphasized that the Legislature determines “the level of oversight … (it) deems appropriate for the grants that they're issuing.”

In the case of the Global Link International grant, $10 million of the $20 million was directed to be paid out before any kind of MEDC review of compliance, MEDC officials have said. 

Messer continued: “We have no discretion of choice, and I guess theoretically, we could say no, but once they're assigned to us, we … execute the required compliance that they have already established in the statutory language of their grant, and will continue to do so.”

Despite the raid, Messer maintained on Tuesday that the MEDC is cooperating with the investigation.