Billionaire megadonor and long-time friend Howard Lutnick is likely to be the new commerce secretary of Donald Trump’s administration, reports said Tuesday though the president-elect did not make any announcement. This is however not the gig that Lutnick was lobbying for as he was eyeing the US Department of Treasury. Lutnick was co-chair of Trump transition team and was publicly backed by Elon Musk and Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Lutnick is the chief executive of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
Howard Lutnick, as the co-chair of the transition team, was looking for candidates to fill Trump’s administration and now he is going to be one of them. Questions were raised as to why he did not step away from running his firms while he was looking for people who will be appointed to agencies which oversee and regulate such businesses.
Lutnick gained national attention when 658 of his employees and his brother died in the 2001 World Trade Center attack. He rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald almost from ashes.
