Howard Lutnick

Quick facts

Key positions

Biography

Howard Lutnick led Cantor Fitzgerald as CEO and Chairman from 1991 until 2025, when he was confirmed as U.S. Secretary of Commerce in the second Trump administration. On his departure he installed his sons in the firm’s top jobs: Brandon Lutnick (CEO and Chairman, February 2025) and Kyle Lutnick (Executive Vice Chairman), with Kyle also taking Howard’s seat on the board of the commercial real estate firm Newmark Group. His brother-in-law, Rick Owen Lambert, M.D., was placed as a Senior Advisor at HHS, and his Commerce Department chief of staff, Yevette DePinto, holds a $1 million–$5 million stake in Newmark stock (per OGE financial disclosures). Howard makes policy; the family network retains the financial interest.

Cantor Fitzgerald is Tether’s primary banker and custodian of roughly $140 billion in Treasury reserves, and holds an approximately 5% equity stake in Tether valued near $600 million (per Bloomberg and ProPublica disclosures). Tether also loaned the Lutnick children the money to buy Cantor from Howard, and an October 2025 UCC filing names Tether as collateral agent for Dynasty Trust A, the trust holding Cantor ownership. As Commerce Secretary, Lutnick sits on the Digital Asset Working Group and has not recused from cryptocurrency matters; Senator Elizabeth Warren formally probed these ties during his confirmation (per Warren Senate newsroom and CoinDesk, January 2025). Cantor Fitzgerald separately paid $6.75 million in 2024 to settle SEC charges over misleading SPAC disclosures (per SEC press release 2024-172).

Lutnick’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein became a confirmation issue. After publicly stating he had cut off contact with Epstein after 2005, Lutnick acknowledged under Senate questioning that he had taken his wife, children, and nannies to Epstein’s private island in 2012 — four years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Cantor Fitzgerald processed Epstein’s Deutsche Bank trades, and a 2013 Cantor referral agreement with Urramoor Limited — a company controlled by Prince Andrew, Duke of York — routed sovereign wealth fund introductions to Cantor’s U.S. real estate deals, with documents reaching Epstein’s inbox within hours of execution. Lutnick was scheduled for a House Oversight Committee voluntary interview on May 6, 2026.

His Commerce tenure has drawn congressional scrutiny across several fronts: Wyden/Warren Senate investigations and a Raskin-led House Judiciary inquiry (launched February 27, 2026) into Cantor’s tariff-refund financial products; and a Warren/Raskin letter (March 29, 2026) noting that Newmark — a broker of ICE detention warehouse properties — is “now owned by his sons.” On Fox News in March 2025, Lutnick told viewers to “buy Tesla stock,” which ethics analysts flagged under 5 CFR 2635.702 (use of public office for private gain).

Sources

• ProPublica, Trump Team Financial Disclosures (OGE Form 278e) — net worth, positions, holdings
• Bloomberg, “Tether Made Loan to Lutnick’s Children” (March 2026) — Tether/Cantor financial ties
• Warren Senate newsroom / CoinDesk, “As Lutnick Faces U.S. Senate, Elizabeth Warren Scrutinizes His Tether Ties” (January 29, 2025) — confirmation-stage conflict scrutiny
• SEC press release 2024-172, “SEC Charges Cantor Fitzgerald for SPAC Disclosure Failures” (2024) — $6.75M settlement
• Fortune, “Lutnick gives sons top Cantor jobs” (February 2025) — Brandon and Kyle Lutnick appointments
• Warren/Raskin congressional investigation letters (March 29, 2026) — Newmark / detention-brokerage scrutiny