István Kovács

István Kovács (Kovács István Gergely) has run the Megafon Központ as executive director since its founding in 2020, an operation that trained and ran pro-Fidesz influencers on social media and regularly spent tens of millions of forints on advertising around elections - 72 million forints in a single week on one occasion. Kovács publicly denied in a radio interview that the organization had any formal ties to any political force, even as a court case he himself brought against Telex, which he lost, confirmed that Megafon was funded with public money channeled by the Prime Minister's Cabinet Office through the Batthyány Lajos Foundation. Between 2020 and 2022 Megafon received roughly 5.3 billion forints from sources that could not be identified. Kovács is also strategic director of the Center for Fundamental Rights (Alapjogokért Központ) and teaches political communication at Budapest Metropolitan University. Megafon Központ ceased operations in the summer of 2026, shortly after the parliamentary election.