From September 2017 to January 2020, Di Maio was the leader of the Five Star Movement, an anti-establishment party founded by Beppe Grillo.

[4] In June 2022, Di Maio left the M5S due to tensions with Giuseppe Conte over providing support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion, founding his own political group, Together for the Future (IpF).

[5] IpF had a brief life, being disbanded following a poor performance in the 2022 Italian general election (in which it ran within the Civic Commitment electoral list alongside Democratic Centre).

[7][8] Di Maio attended the Liceo classico and then he enrolled at the University of Naples Federico II to study engineering, but after failing, subsequently changing to law.

[11][12][13][14] In 2007, Di Maio was among the founders of the political group "Friends of Beppe Grillo", the predecessors of the Five Star Movement (M5S), founded by the popular comedian in October 2009.

[22] Di Maio had been often labeled as the most pragmatic and "institutional", but also the least populist Five Star politician; he is considered the leader of the moderate and "governmental" faction of the movement.

[26] Many of them were almost unknown and this led to a lot of criticism from the Democratic Party, Lega Nord and Forza Italia,[27] which considered this ballot a false primary election, with the only aim of appointing Di Maio as M5S candidate without any real challenger.

[32] In the 2018 general election, the M5S became the party with the largest number of votes and of parliamentary seats, while the centre-right alliance, in which Matteo Salvini's League emerged as the main political force, won a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate and the centre-left coalition, led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, came third.

[35] On 7 May, President Mattarella held a third round of government formation talks, after which he formally confirmed the lack of any possible majority (M5S rejecting an alliance with the whole centre-right coalition, PD rejecting an alliance with both M5S and the centre-right coalition, and the League's Matteo Salvini refusing to start a government with M5S but without Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, whose presence in the government was explicitly vetoed by M5S's leader Luigi Di Maio); on the same circumstance, he announced his intention to soon appoint a "neutral government" (irrespective of M5S and League's refusal to support such an option) to take over from the Gentiloni Cabinet which was considered unable to lead Italy into a second consecutive election as it was representing a majority from a past legislature, and offering an early election in July (on what it would be the very first time for a summer general election in Italy) as a realistic option to take into consideration due to the deadlock situation.

[37][38][39] On 9 May, after a day of rumours surfaced, both Di Maio and Salvini officially requested President Mattarella to give them 24 more hours to strike a government agreement between the two parties.

[50] In his speech after Conte's resignation, Mattarella declared that the two parties wanted to bring Italy out of the Eurozone, and as the guarantor of Italian Constitution and country's interest and stability he could not allow this.

[56][57] Meanwhile, Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio announced their willingness to restart the negotiations to form a political government, Giorgia Meloni, leader of FdI, gave her support to the initiative.

[67] Many political analysts believe the no confidence motion was an attempt to force early elections to improve Lega's standing in Parliament, ensuring Salvini could become the next prime minister.

[72] After Conte's resignation, the national board of the PD officially opened to the possibility of forming a new cabinet in a coalition with the M5S,[73] based on pro-Europeanism, green economy, sustainable development, fight against economic inequality and a new immigration policy.

[77] On 1 September, Five Star's founder Beppe Grillo strongly endorsed an alliance with the PD, describing it as a "unique occasion" to reform the country.

[93][94] On 23 December, Di Maio stated: "This is an extremely important result, which rewards a long and patient political and diplomatic work.

The leaders of the Five Star Movement risked to weaken Italy, putting the government in difficulty for reasons related to their own consensus crisis.

[110][111][112] On 1 August 2022, following the resignation of prime minister Draghi and the call for snap election to be held in September, Di Maio and Bruno Tabacci, leader of Democratic Centre (CD), founded Civic Commitment (IC), a centrist electoral alliance.

[113][114] In spite of the affiliation with the Democratic Party, in the election he lost his seat in Parliament, and after his departure from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he resigned from Civic Commitment leadership, bringing de facto an end to this electoral list.

[115] His candidacy, despite being initially opposed by the new Italian government of Giorgia Meloni,[116] was widely approved by the High Representative Josep Borrell and the European Council.

[117] Di Maio officially will hold the position from 1 June 2023, with the aim of developing a stronger, comprehensive and more strategic partnership with the countries in the Gulf.