Topline
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose story of losing two-thirds of his employees and his brother on 9/11 is widely known, has grown his net worth substantially since becoming a member of Trump’s Cabinet, but outside of his 9/11 story, he has a reputation on Wall Street for ruthless self-dealing at the expense of his partners and employees.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks to the press following the G20 Innovation Ministerial at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on September 2, 2026. (Photo by Matt RAMEY / AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
Before becoming commerce secretary, Lutnick was the longtime CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost all 658 of its 960 employees who were in the World Trade Center during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including Lutnick’s best friend Doug and his younger brother Gary.
Lutnick rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald in the aftermath of 9/11 and grew the firm to 12,000 employees, and established The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund.
Lutnick frequently tells his 9/11 story and President Donald Trump, who has known Lutnick for years, called him “the embodiment of resilience in the face of unspeakable tragedy” when he announced Lutnick as his nominee for commerce secretary—but it is not his only defining quality among those in the finance world, where one former partner previously described him to Forbes as “the most hated guy on Wall Street.”
Since joining Trump’s Cabinet, Lutnick and his family’s net worth has more than doubled to around $7.3 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates, thanks largely to Lutnick’s indirect stake in Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, via his 55% stake in Cantor Fitzgerald.
That stake is worth an estimated $5.4 billion, up from $1.7 billion in early 2025, while the rest of Lutnick’s fortune comes from his stakes in publicly listed firms, electronic trading brokerage BGC Group and commercial real estate arm Newmark Group.
Lutnick stepped down as CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald when he joined Trump’s Cabinet and transferred his stake in the firm to trusts for his adult children, controlled by his second-eldest son Brandon Lutnick, who took over as Cantor’s CEO and chairman when Lutnick joined the Trump administration.
Lutnick also sold his shares in BGC Group and Newmark back to the companies; his latest Federal Election Commission filing shows he received $190 million of distributions from BGC and Newmark acquiring his shares back from him.
CONTRA
According to the Commerce Department, the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund donated $180 million to families of his coworkers who died on 9/11, and Lutnick has donated more than $100 million to victims of terrorism, natural disasters, and other emergencies.
What’s behind Lutnick’s reputation as “the most hated guy on Wall Street”?
Lutnick has a reputation of squeezing his partners and even his own employees. His partnership agreements reportedly ran hundreds of pages in length and gave him broad leeway to withhold payments to former partners. A lawsuit filed in federal court in 2023 alleged an estimated 40% of Lutnick’s partners didn’t walk away with all of their money after departing, Forbes reported previously. Lutnick also had a falling out with the family of his longtime mentor, Bernie Cantor, the founder of Cantor Fitzgerald who hired Lutnick two years out of college and promoted him to run day-to-day management of the firm by the time he was 30. When Cantor’s health declined, Lutnick activated an incapacity committee that voted to strip him of control of the firm. Cantor’s wife, Iris, one of the committee’s two abstaining votes, then barred Lutnick from visiting her husband’s cemetery, we reported previously. In 2021, Lutnick allegedly demanded the compensation committee of Newmark’s board pay him a $50 million bonus for his role in Newmark taking the right to BGC’s shares in Nasdaq. When the company’s shareholders filed a lawsuit, the committee pushed back consideration of the award and Lutnick allegedly made his displeasure known. He ended up being awarded the $50 million bonus, paid out over four years.
Key Background
Lutnick and Trump have known each other for years. Lutnick once lived in a Trump Palace apartment before buying the townhouse next door to Jeffrey Epstein’s. (Through a spokesperson, Lutnick lied to Forbes in 2024 stating that he never had any association with Epstein, despite later admitting to visiting Epstein’s private island. ) Lutnick also appeared as a guest on Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2008. The Trump Organization also hired Newmark to sell its Washington, D.C., hotel. When Trump was elected to a second term, he tapped Lutnick to co-chair his transition team. When he nominated him for commerce secretary, Trump said he’d been “a dynamic force on Wall Street for more than 30 years” and praised his contributions to 9/11 families.
Additional reporting by Dan Alexander and John Hyatt.
further reading
‘Like A Pig In S—-’: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Revels In The Trade War (Forbes)
Howard Lutnick’s Ties To Epstein Explained—As He Testifies Before Congress Today (Forbes)
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