Meet Wall Street billionaire Howard Lutnick, Donald Trump's nominee for commerce secretary
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- Donald Trump has tapped Wall Street CEO Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary.
- Lutnick has spent over three decades running Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment bank in New York.
- See his career highlights and who could take over at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, has been named the next US secretary of commerce for Donald Trump.
As the head of the Commerce Department, Lutnick would have sway over the economy through tariffs and trade. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be integral to Trump's plan to raise tariffs on goods from China, a central promise of the president-elect's bid for a second White House term.
The Wall Street veteran has spent his career at financial-services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, where he has been president and CEO since 1991. In recent years, the billionaire banker has become a key advisor to and fundraiser for the 47th president. He is cochair of the Trump transition team.
Here's a look at Lutnick's rise from "middle-class Long Island" to Wall Street boss and what his new role could mean for the investment bank he heads.
Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund
Lutnick was named president and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald in 1991 β at age 29 β and, by 1996, had been appointed chairman.
In an interview on a podcast hosted by the investor Anthony Pompliano, he said that he had a "classic middle-class Long Island" childhood, with his mother working as an art teacher and his father as a history professor. His mother passed away from breast cancer when Lutnick was in the 11th grade, and his father died from cancer shortly after he started college.
He was 18 and found himself caring for his younger brother, who was 15 at the time. He also had a 20-year-old sister. He recalled being unable to cook for his siblings, so they ate boxed macaroni and cheese night after night, he shared on the podcast.
Lutnick said in the podcast that he landed his first job at Cantor Fitzgerald with the help of a family connection. He took a semester off of his studies at Haverford College to start working but eventually earned his degree in economics.
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Cantor Fitzgerald offers a range of services, from investment banking to sales and trading to equity research.
The firm's website said it has raised more than $45 billion for clients through 700 deals since 2016 and that it has more than 1,150 active institutional and corporate clients. The New York City-based firm counts more than 245 professionals on its sales and trading team and cites its "core expertise" as healthcare and technology.
The firm's asset-management arm had some $13.2 billion in assets as of the end of 2023 with investments in real estate, private markets, infrastructure, equities, and fixed income, to name a few.
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According to data from the deal-tracking firm Dealogic, three of the largest and most recent transactions Cantor Fitzgerald has advised on include:
- Johnson & Johnson's $1.9 billion acquisition of Ambrx Biopharma, completed in January 2024
- Primavera Capital's $866 million acquisition of Fosun Fashion Group, completed in March 2022
- Inflection Point Acquisition Corp's $850 million acquisition of Intuitive Machines, completed in September 2022
Out of their top 20 deals by transaction size since 2022, the most represented sectors were tech, healthcare, and utilities and energy. Six of those deals were in technology, five in healthcare, three in utilities and energy, two in retail, two in mining, and one each in aerospace and transportation.
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It's unclear what Cantor Fitzgerald's future looks like without Lutnick. A spokesperson for the firm did not immediately return a request for comment.
Bloomberg reported that Lutnick's top deputies have been in their respective roles for at least six years, including Stephen Merkel, an executive vice chairman and general counsel, who joined in 1993.
Other top executives, according to the firm's website, include Global chief operating officer Mark Kaplan; Global head of investment banking Sage Kelly; Global head of equities Pascal Bandelier; Global head of fixed income Christian Wall, and Chief Financial Officer Danny Salinas.
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Lutnick, a longtime supporter of Trump, became a visible member of the ex-president's inner circle in the 2024 election cycle.
In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., said: "Howard's not a regular Wall Street guy β he's a real MAGA guy. Have you heard him talk about tariffs? Have you heard him talk about shredding the deep state bureaucracy? He's one of us," Trump Jr. said.
Leading up to the election, he was an active organizer and fundraiser for Trump, including appearing at Trump's rally in Madison Square Garden.
Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund
Cantor Fitzgerald was headquartered at 1 World Trade Center when terrorists flew planes into it and a neighboring lower Manhattan building in 2001. Two-thirds of Cantor's employees, or 658 people, died in the attacks, including Lutnick's brother.
Lutnick was named the Financial Times' Person of the Year after the attacks in 2001.
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As commerce secretary, Lutnick will be in charge of carrying out Trump's aggressive tariff proposals, which have called for taxes in imports of between 10% and 60%. He will also be in charge of the Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis, which reports on gross domestic product.
Leading up to his appointment as commerce secretary, media reports suggested Lutnick was vying for a role as Treasury Secretary.
The New York Times reported this week that the behind-the-scenes jockeying between the two for the role had devolved into a "knife fight," according to a source familiar with their schism.
