Who is Howard Lutnick?
Net worth: $2 Billion (As of March 2025)
- Billionaire Howard Lutnick currently serves as the Secretary of Commerce. When he isn’t on TV trying to assure the American people that simplistic tariffs are a good thing, he’s counting the money from his net worth of $2 billion or being cheered on by various industry voices.
- As one of his first actions as Commerce Secretary, Lutnick complained that people who were upset by the serious possibility of a skipped Social Security check were fraudsters. He went so far as to say his mother-ln-law wouldn’t complain if she missed her check – perhaps because her son-in-law is a multibillionaire, unlike the 60% of beneficiaries for whom Social Security is their sole source of income.
- After major staffing cuts at the Social Security Administration, too many Americans have been left without their Social Security checks.
- Lutnick has been an avid supporter of Trump’s tariff’s that have been undermining the economy. Lutnick actually told Meet The Press there would be “no chance” of a recession
- According to the Tax Foundation, the tariffs have resulted in $1,000 increase per household in the US.
- Lutnick potentially violated the Code of Federal Ethics when he went on Fox News and promoted buying stock in Tesla. The Campaign Legal Center filed an ethics complaint against Lutnick in March 2025 for telling viewers, “Buy Tesla. It’s unbelievable that this guy’s stock is this cheap. It’ll never be this cheap again.” At the time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s far-right activism and slash-and-burn attacks on the federal civil service were prompting protests and boycotts of Tesla products, contributing to the stock’s price plummeting.
- Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington argued in an August 13, 2025 complaint that Lutnick violated the Hatch Act when the Cabinet member urged voters to vote against then-New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
- The Hatch Act prohibits civil servants from engaging in political activity, such as weighing in on an election, in their official capacity.
- Hilariously, when asked about AI potentially reducing white-collar workforce jobs, Lutnick told CNBC that anxious Gen Z workers should prepare to work in factories building consumer technology: “This is the new model, where you work in these [factory] plants for the rest of your life, and your kids work here, and your grandkids work here.”
- Lutnick created a bottleneck policy at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) when he decided that all contracts over $100,000 must be personally approved by him. He never gave a reason for the decision. The new policy resulted in multiple services including web hosting and emergency alert contracts to lapse.
- These sites make NOAA data available to the general public and the science it makes possible assists experts making weather forecasts, investigating climate change, and tracking hazards and natural disasters such as major storms.
- Lutinick is another Wall Street vulture. He is the “former” head of Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment banking firm. Known as the “most hated man on Wall Street” (fitting for the Trump administration), Lutnick is infamous for his use of special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). SPACs, sometimes called “blank check companies,” are companies formed by insiders (usually investors or sponsors) who proclaim they have special knowledge of a specific industry and want to raise funds to acquire another company. Crucially, the SPAC itself is the only entity that is ever listed on a public exchange, not the company that the SPAC ultimately uses investor cash to acquire: this means that the acquired company never has to disclose any of its risks or internal information to investors. The purpose of SPACs is widely held to be an end-run around investor protection regulations. Lutnick himself was accused of basically using SPACS to scam people. Lutnick and Cantor’s use of SPACs led to charges by the Securities and Exchanges Commission for misleading investors.
- Cantor’s Las Vegas sportsbook business faced fines after its vice president, Michael Colbert, was found to have accepted illegal wages and acted as an agent to “a nationwide illegal betting operation.” In fact, in 2014, Lutnick signed off on an over $5.5 million fine with the Nevada Gaming Control board for recordkeeping violations.
Lutnick and Epstein
- Lutnick, is one of the highest- profile members of the Trump administration with significant ties to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Despite claiming to never have been in the same room with Epstein, Lutnick has not only had met with the man in 2012, but brought along his four children and his wife. In fact, Lutnick’s wife Allison coordinated the meeting with Epstein.
- The BBC also reported that in 2011 Lutnick and Epstein had met for drinks.
- In 2015, Lutnick personally invited Epstein to a fundraiser for then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
- Bipartisan outrage after Lutnick’s disastrous testimony before Congress, in which he admitted he was still in contact with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction, resulted in some on both sides of the aisle calling for his resignation.
How is Howard Lutnick benefiting from the Trump Administration?
- Howard Lutnick, like many in the Trump orbit, bought his way into politics. He effectively purchased his position as Commerce Secretary after helping the president raise almost $15 million during the 2024 presidential campaign cycle. Lutnick, an unqualified Wall Street whose character has a dubious reputation, seemingly used his power and influence to run to the front of the line and get a cushy cabinet position in which he can potentially enrich himself.
- Lutnick is still potentially enriching himself because of his position. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) raised alarms over a Commerce Department letter of intent to send a startup, USA Rare Earth, $1.6 billion of Commerce Department funds to help scale up its mining operation. Cantor Fitzgerald, Lutnick’s “former” bank, was set up as its lead placement agent.
- The Senators said in a statement, “This follows in a long string of actions that you have taken in your capacity as the Secretary of Commerce that could stand to enrich your immediate family and former company,”
For more information, see the Revolving Door Project’s Oligarchs in Trump World tracker.