As Transport Minister, he presided over numerous projects such as Marmaray, high-speed rail lines and an expansion in the country's airport and road facilities, though received heavy criticism and calls for his resignation following the Pamukova train derailment in 2004.

He was removed from office by Erdoğan's successor, Mayor Ali Müfit Gürtuna, following allegations of misconduct, having been accused of hiring out buffets to a firm run by members of his close family.

[20] Due to the AKP's three-term limit on its MPs, Yıldırım was unable to seek re-election for a fourth time in the June 2015 general election.

[22] On February 18, 2019, the speaker of the Turkish Parliament Binali Yildirim announced that he would resign due to the fact that he would run for mayor of Istanbul in the local elections to be held in Turkey on March 31, 2019.

On 4 January 2004, Yıldırım oversaw the launch of construction works on the first branch between Ankara and Eskişehir, that was eventually inaugurated in 2009 with total costs of ₺7.5 million to upgrade the tracks, rolling stock and increase the speed of trains on the route to 150 km/h (93 mph).

Under the strategic aims published by the Transport Ministry while Yıldırım was in office, the government planned over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) of high speed lines by the year 2023, as part of the AKP's '2023 vision' for the centenary of the Turkish Republic.

A report commissioned by the British organisation Cyber-Rights.Org stated that 'the current Turkish law on controlling Internet content, through its procedural and substantive deficiencies, is designed to censor and silence political speech.

[50] Although Yıldırım technically left office on 25 December 2013, he led efforts to generating court orders to block Twitter and YouTube due to a large-scale online anti-government backlash following revelations of government corruption in 2013.

The opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) claimed that it was an attempt by the Islamist-orientated AKP to construct a new social order, while numerous other non-governmental associations, universities and newspapers accused the Minister of supporting sex segregation.

[69] On 12 April 2016, Yıldırım's son was photographed by a Sözcü newspaper journalist playing roulette at the Marina Bay Sands Casino in Singapore.

[70] The photographs were leaked online, causing criticism due to Yıldırım's previous comments regarding religious morality and Islam, which conflicted with his son's gambling.

[72] Soon after, photographs of Yıldırım's nephew, whom he had appointed to the Istanbul Regional Directorate of Transport, were leaked showing him drinking rakı, a traditional Turkish alcoholic beverage that also conflicted with the Islam-orientated social policy espoused by the AKP.

The criticism spread to the AKP government as a whole and to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan after Durmuş Yılmaz, whose wife wore a headscarf, was appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Turkey.

In response to the criticism, Yıldırım denied the claims of discrimination and stated that it was against the party's program, calling for a non-veiled candidate to come forward so that he could appoint her to 'any' bureaucratic position.

[19] Despite being the Minister responsible for communications, Yıldırım gave a speech at a Türk Telekom event in 2011 and was ridiculed for his apparent lack of knowledge about Cloud computing.

[77][78] In May 2021, Sedat Peker, a Turkish mafia boss and whistle-blower, started to release YouTube videos that contained several allegations about Süleyman Soylu.

In one of his videos, he claimed that Yıldırım's son Erkan, who is in the sea transport business with a large fleet, was involved in the cocaine traffic and has been to Caracas, Venezuela a few times to arrange the logistics.

With Ahmet Davutoğlu becoming prime minister, Yıldırım continued as an 'unofficial' advisor to Erdoğan since officially being appointed to the Presidential Office required his resignation as an MP.

[citation needed] In the 2014 local elections, Yıldırım was approached by Erdoğan to run for the Metropolitan Mayor of İzmir, regarded as a stronghold of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).

[94] following Davutoğlu's resignation, AKP Member of Parliament Aydın Ünal stated that the next prime minister would focus on technical implementation only with Erdoğan dictating government policy.

[98] On 5 May 2016, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu announced that he would be stepping down as AKP leader and would not stand as a candidate in the subsequent party leadership election.

[100] In April 2016, a WordPress blog named the Pelican files were released by unnamed supporters of Erdoğan, detailing 27 different points of disagreement between the two men.

[102] A similar disagreement between Erdoğan and Davutoğlu regarding the unified candidate list for the party Central Executive Committee during the 5th AKP Ordinary Congress in 2015 almost prompted Yıldırım to run against him.

[106] Despite the internal party opinion polling, President Erdoğan was observed to have effectively hand-picked Yıldırım to succeed Davutoğlu due to him being a close ally for two decades.

[119] Following Yıldırım's election as AKP leader on 22 May, the European Union released a statement on 23 May congratulating him and calling for the new government to work towards implementing the migrant deal agreed on 18 March.

The EU declared that Turkey would have to change its terror laws for the deal to take place despite the initial agreement, a condition met with strong opposition by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

[122] On 2 June 2016, the German Bundestag voted in favour of a motion jointly proposed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Green Party that officially recognised the events concerning the mass deportation and killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as a Genocide, in line with a similar decision taken by the European Parliament a year before.

[123] In response, the government enacted similar measures that had been taken against the previous 29 countries that had recognised the Armenian genocide, beginning with the recalling of the Turkish Ambassador in Berlin back to Turkey (though presumably on a temporary basis).

[124] In response to the German Parliament's decision, Prime Minister Yıldırım made a statement criticising Germany and claiming that there was no past historical event that the Turkish people are ashamed of.

[126] As part of the new government's program, Yıldırım announced plans to keep open channels for mutual dialogue with Russia in an attempt to normalise relations on the basis of common interests.