Howard William Lutnick (/ˈlʌtnɪk/; born July 14, 1961[1]) is an American businessman, who succeeded Bernard Gerald Cantor as the head of Cantor Fitzgerald. Lutnick is the chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Group. After losing 658 employees, including his brother, in the September 11 attacks, Lutnick also survived the subsequent collapse of the towers on the ground, and has since become known for his charity efforts through the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, which helps to aid families of victims of the attacks and natural disasters.
He was a fundraiser for Donald Trump's 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns, as well as a vocal proponent of Trump's proposal to implement broad tariffs. In November 2024, President-elect Trump announced that he intended to nominate Lutnick as secretary of commerce.
Early life
Howard Lutnick was born into a Jewish family[2] on July 14, 1961 in Jericho, New York, on Long Island,[3] and is the son of the late Solomon Lutnick, a history professor at Queens College, and the late Jane Lutnick, a painter and sculptor.[3][4] Lutnick was the middle child of the family, with an elder sister Edie and a younger brother Gary.[citation needed]
Lutnick was a senior in high school when his mother died of lymphoma in 1978.[3] The following year, Lutnick entered Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania.[3] During his first week at school, Lutnick's father died after a nurse treating him—for colon and lung cancers—accidentally gave him 100-times the dose of chemotherapy drugs that he was supposed to receive.[5][3] Now orphans, Lutnick and his two siblings "felt abandoned by his relatives", instead relied on themselves for support.[5][3] Lutnick, then 18, was forced to hire a lawyer to settle the debt his father left behind.[3]
The president and dean of Haverford, an institution priding itself on a Quaker heritage, called Lutnick a week after his father's death and offered him a full scholarship for his education there.[6] Lutnick went on to graduate from the school with a degree in economics, in 1983.[7][8]
Career
Lutnick joined Cantor Fitzgerald in 1983, the same year he graduated from college. Early on, Lutnick developed a warm relationship with the firm's founder Bernard Cantor as his personal mentor.[9] In 1991, Lutnick was named president and CEO of the company, and he became chairman in 1996.[10]
Lutnick placed a high value on technology early on, and in 1999 made the decision to take eSpeed, an electronic trading subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, public.[11] This electronic trading system required no brokers, and was a large part of the reason Cantor Fitzgerald was able to remain afloat when 70% of the brokers in their New York office, everyone who was in the office that morning, were killed in the September 11 attacks.
Lutnick speaking at the Financial Times - Electric Money Conference in Cipriani Wall Street, New York City (2007)
In 2004, Lutnick and then head of the London office Lee M. Amaitis decided to split Cantor Fitzgerald into two separate operations. Cantor would continue handling big trades through stock and bond trading desks, while a newly formed BGC Partners would offer broker-driven trading.[11] This move enabled the two entities to grow independently of each other, but required Cantor to borrow $400 million in loans and go into debt for the first time as a company in order to properly fund BGC's initial growth.[11] In 2008, Lutnick oversaw the merger of BGC Partners and eSpeed, a deal valued at $1.3 billion.[11][9]
Lutnick took the video platform Rumble public through a SPAC deal.[12] He was also involved in the SPAC merger of earth observation company Satellogic in January 2022, where former US Treasury SecretarySteven Mnuchin invested $150 million.[13] In 2024, Lutnick resigned from the board of Satellogic[14], with Cantor Fitzgerald increasing its position in the company.[15]
At the time of the September 11 attacks, Cantor Fitzgerald's offices occupied the 101–105th floors in the World Trade Center's North Tower, just above where a hijacked plane hit the building.[18][19] None of the employees who were in the Cantor offices that morning survived the attacks. In total, 658 of Cantor's 960 employees died that day,[20] including Lutnick's brother, Gary Lutnick.[18] Lutnick himself would have been in the office as well that morning, but on September 11 he was taking his son Kyle to his first day of kindergarten.[19][20] He tried, and failed, to reach the vicinity of the towers, hoping to find any Cantor staff members who had made it out alive. He survived the collapse of South Tower by taking cover under a car nearby.[21]
In a short time after the attacks, Lutnick made several public appearances, and quickly became one of the most iconic figures from September 11.[20] Because Cantor Fitzgerald lost two-thirds of its workforce, the company was in a vulnerable state, and many observers expected them to close.[19] Four days after the attacks, on September 15, Lutnick announced amid much controversy, that he would stop the paychecks of nearly 700 employees who were missing or had died.[22][23]
In a televised interview with CNN's Larry King on September 19, Lutnick addressed the issue, saying “I lost everybody in the company… I don't have any money to pay their salaries.”[22][24] In that same interview, Lutnick went on to say that while paychecks had been stopped, families of Cantor employees who had died in the attack would receive a 25% share of future Cantor profits for five years as well as health insurance for the next ten years.[3][19] Combined, this package totaled more than $100,000 for each family.[3][22]
In 2006, the firm donated $180 million to the relatives of their employees affected by the 9/11 attack.[1]
Lutnick has been featured in events and specials relating to September 11, including the 2012 documentary Out of the Clear Blue Sky by director Danielle Gardner.[25]
Philanthropy
Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund
Just days after the September 11 attacks, Lutnick established the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund as a non-profit organization to aid families of Cantor employees who perished in the attacks of September 11. The fund was started with a $1 million donation from Lutnick himself, and provided assistance for families of 9/11 victims from 14 different companies as well as Cantor.[26] Lutnick's sister Edie Lutnick, a former labor lawyer, agreed to join the charity as executive director and co-founder.[27] To date, the fund has given out approximately $180 million to families of Cantor employees and approximately $280 million altogether as the fund has broadened the scope of its efforts to assist victims of natural disasters and other hardships.[18][28]
Global Charity Day
Each year on September 11 (or the business day closest to September 11 if that day falls on a weekend), Cantor Fitzgerald and its affiliate BGC Partners hold a Global Charity Day event and pledge 100 percent of the day's revenue to charity.[29] Since 2005, Global Charity Day events have raised approximately $113 million. Celebrities, sports stars and other notable individuals take part in the event on Cantor's and BGC's trading floors by speaking with clients throughout the day.[30] Previous event participants have included President George W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Lady Gaga, Venus Williams, Eli Manning, Susan Sarandon, and Prince Harry, who holds the record for the largest single Global Charity Day trade.[31]
Haverford College
In 2012, Lutnick was appointed Chair of the Haverford College Board of Managers following a term of six years as a Vice-Chair.[32] Lutnick endowed five student scholarships at Haverford and funded or led the efforts to fund several campus institutions:
Cantor Fitzgerald Art Gallery
Douglas B. Gardner '83 Integrated Athletic Center[33]
When Hurricane Sandy hit New York and New Jersey in October 2012, Lutnick pledged $10 million to aid families who were severely affected by the storm. Cantor Fitzgerald “adopted” 19 schools in communities that were hardest-hit and distributed $1,000 debit cards to nearly 10,000 families in neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, Staten Island, and New Jersey.[37][38] Sen. Charles Schumer and other public figures appeared with Lutnick at several schools. Lutnick, with the assistance of his wife Allison, sister Edie, and team of volunteers and employees, personally distributed the debit cards to parents beginning at Public School 256 in Far Rockaway.[38]
Oklahoma Tornado Relief
After the 2013 Moore tornado killed dozens of people and caused an estimated $2 billion in damage, Lutnick appeared on Piers Morgan Live on CNN and pledged that his companies and the Cantor Relief Fund would donate $2 million to victims of the disaster.[39]
Israeli Causes
Lutnick hosted the United Hatzalah Gala in June of 2024 at Cipriani Downtown. The gala raised upwards of $10 million.
Fundraising for Donald Trump
On May 17, 2019, Lutnick hosted a fundraiser for Donald Trump at his home in Manhattan, raising some $5 million, according to the President's aide.[40][41]
On August 2, 2024, Lutnick hosted a fundraiser for Trump and his supporters in an air-conditioned tent at his home in Bridgehampton, New York.[42] Two weeks later, Trump tapped him and Linda McMahon as co-chairs of his 2024 presidential transition team.[43]
Secretary of Commerce
Nomination
After weeks of speculation that Lutnick was a candidate for Treasury Secretary, on November 19, 2024, president-elect Trump announced he would nominate Lutnick to serve as secretary of commerce.[44]
Views
On October 27, 2024, Lutnick spoke at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden,[45] where he advocated for the strength of economy of the United States in 1900, crediting the lack of income tax and high tariff policies active at the time, saying "We had no income tax, and all we had was tariffs".[46] Lutnick is a proponent of broad tariffs.[47]
Partnership for New York City Board of Directors[67]
Personal life
On December 10, 1994, Lutnick married Allison Lambert, a law associate at Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker.[68] They have four children together, including sons Brandon and Kyle, whose first days of pre-school and kindergarten respectively fell on September 11, 2001. Lutnick was dropping his son off at his kindergarten, which caused him to be late for work, thereby saving his life.[11]
In 2024, Lutnick appeared on Nothing Left Unsaid, a podcast hosted by Tim Green. During the episode, he discussed his life in detail, including his experiences during and after the 9/11 attacks, his leadership of Cantor Fitzgerald, and his views on resilience and rebuilding in the face of tragedy.[69]
References
^ abSolomont, E. B. (April 21, 2015). "Howard Lutnick". TheRealDeal.com. New York, NY: Korangy Publishing. Archived from the original(interview with independent biographical opening) on July 27, 2020. Retrieved November 17, 2024.
^Leving, Jessica (June 9, 2016). "Lion Luncheon 2017: 'We are the First Responders'"(report on luncheon address with substantial quoting). Jewish Chicago—The JUF Magazine. Retrieved November 17, 2024. 'We grew up with the Jewish understanding that you helped others,' said Lutnick, who credited her late parents with instilling in her the Jewish values of charity and repairing the world
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