By Saeed Azhar
(Reuters) – Wall Street veteran Howard Lutnick, whose domain stretches from brokerages to real estate, has been one of Donald Trump’s biggest promoters from the business world in recent months.
Lutnick, 63, in August became co-chair of Trump’s transition team for a second four-year term in the White House, tapping his network from a career on Wall Street to help build a roster of candidates to serve in the next administration. His reward for longtime friendship and support is the role of secretary of commerce in the Republican president-elect’s administration.
“I believe his policies will be critical in ensuring American businesses remain successful and our role on the world stage remains strong,” Lutnick tweeted on Aug. 9, after hosting Trump at a fundraising dinner at his home in New York’s affluent Hamptons seaside community with 130 supporters.
Trump and Lutnick’s relationship spans decades. After 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees died at New York’s World Trade Center in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Trump, who headed the Trump Organization real estate company, offered support to Lutnick because the CEO had to staff up and hire thousands of people at the brokerage.
He and Trump also came together on other occasions, including in 2008 when Lutnick was a guest on “The Apprentice,” the reality TV show hosted by Trump.
Wall Street is closely eyeing Lutnick’s positions on various policies.
He has advocated for more jobs for Americans and criticized the U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade pact as hurting U.S. auto manufacturing jobs.
Lutnick is also a big supporter of cryptocurrencies, with Cantor Fitzgerald launching a financing business that provides leverage to investors who hold bitcoin.
“Every time bitcoin dips, I am gonna be the buyer,” Lutnick told a podcast on Oct. 28.
Lutnick is also a staunch supporter of Israel, in line with Trump’s position.
While he has recently been wholeheartedly pro-Trump, Lutnick in the past has donated to Democrats and Republicans. In the run-up to the 2016 election, Lutnick made contributions to the U.S. Senate campaigns of Democrats Kamala Harris and Charles Schumer, Federal Election Commission records show. He also donated to the presidential campaigns of Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Jeb Bush in 2015, according to the records.
Lutnick’s team did not respond to a request for an interview ahead of the announcement.
AFTER THE SEPT. 11 ATTACKS
Lutnick runs a financial conglomerate that includes brokerage BGC Group. He is also executive chairman of Newmark Group, a commercial real estate services firm, and chairman of FMX, a platform owned by some of Wall Street’s biggest banks and traders. He remains the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Lutnick and his employees had to rebuild Cantor Fitzgerald nearly from scratch, in the process creating one of Wall Street’s biggest brokerages.
“We rebuilt that company to take care of the families of those that I lost,” he told a Trump rally in late October.
Cantor had stopped paying missing workers after Sept. 15, causing financial worries among some of its families, according to Reuters and other media in 2001.
Lutnick said it was a short-term move to keep the company running, ABC News reported at the time. Cantor promised to give one-fourth of its profits for the next five years to the families of employees killed in the 2001 attack.
The company’s relief fund eventually paid $180 million to the victims’ families over five years and provided healthcare coverage over 10 years, according to the firm’s website.
A company spokesperson declined to comment.
Lutnick, who escaped the tragedy because he had taken his son to his first day of kindergarten, has become known for his charity efforts through the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, which helps families affected by the 2001 attacks and natural disasters. He often becomes emotional when talking about the tragic events of 2001.
Lutnick was born in Long Island, east of New York City, and is the son of a history professor at New York’s Queens College. He lost his mother to lymphoma when he was a senior in high school and later lost his father when he was attending Haverford College.
He graduated from Haverford in 1983 with a degree in economics and joined Cantor Fitzgerald in the same year.
Lutnick rose rapidly through the ranks to become president and CEO in 1991.
(Reporting by Saeed Azhar; additional reporting by Lawrence Delevingne; editing by Megan Davies, Paul Simao, Richard Chang and Jonathan Oatis)
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