Trump nominated Commerce Secretary: How legendary is Howard Lutnick, who manages half of the USDT reserves?

Source: jk, Odaily Planet Daily

Reprinted: Koala, Mars Finance

On November 19th, local time in the United States, President-elect Trump announced his new cabinet nomination: he nominated Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, as the new Secretary of Commerce. Previously, he was one of the candidates for the Secretary of the Treasury (yesterday, he was elected with a 9% probability in the relevant Polymarket pool).

In his statement, Trump said that Lutnick will lead all matters related to tariffs and trade in the United States. As for the position of Secretary of Commerce, he will lead all major responsibilities of the Department of Commerce: funding new chip factories, implementing trade restrictions, releasing economic data, and even monitoring the weather. He is also one of the co-chairs of Trump's transition team, responsible for filling approximately 4,000 government positions before the presidential inauguration.

According to the process rules and past experience, it takes 2 to 4 months for background checks and Senate confirmation votes from presidential nomination to final inauguration.

And when it comes to the most associated with the encryption world, Howard Lutnick, as CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, manages over half of the reserves behind Tether. (Stablecoin issuer Tether's $39 billion USDT reserves (US Treasury bonds) are managed by Wall Street bond trading giant Cantor Fitzgerald. Tether reported earlier this week that its assets were $67 billion as of the end of 2022. Tether has also become the 'indestructible cornerstone of the crypto world' due to its overwhelmingly leading stablecoin market share.)

So, how strong is Howard Lutnick's background? What is his relationship with Trump and Musk? What are his comments or contributions to the encryption industry? This article details Howard Lutnick's story.

Orphan, young CEO, 911 survivor

Howard Lutnick's early life was not happy.

He was born on July 14, 1961, in Jericho, Long Island, second among three siblings, to a Jewish family. His father was a history professor at the university, and his mother was a painter and sculptor. Unfortunately, his parents both passed away from cancer when he was around 18, leaving the family in a significant amount of debt. Howard, who was just a freshman at the time, had to start dealing with lawyers to properly manage the debts left by his father; if it weren't for his college, Haverford College (a prestigious liberal arts college in the United States), providing him with a full scholarship after hearing about this, he wouldn't even have been able to complete his college education.

In 1983, Howard Lutnick graduated from Haverford with an economics degree and immediately joined Cantor Fitzgerald.

Cantor Fitzgerald, established in 1945, is a Financial Service company specializing in institutional equity and fixed income sales and trading, as well as new businesses such as consulting, asset management services, gaming technology, and e-commerce. It has over 5,000 institutional clients.

Through a series of profitable trades, he won the favor of the company and quickly established a deep mentor relationship with the company's founder, Bernard Cantor. Howard later described his rise, saying, 'The first time I made him 100 million dollars, he liked me; the second time I made him 100 million dollars, he fell in love with me; the third time I made him 100 million dollars - we became family.'

In 1991, Howard was appointed as the president and CEO of the company. At that time, he was only 29 years old.

Howard Lutnick early photo. Source: Youtube

However, Cantor Fitzgerald's office was located on the 105th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. On the day of the 9/11 attacks, Howard was taking his son to kindergarten and was therefore late; but as he was rushing to the office, he witnessed the scene of the towers engulfed in thick smoke. His brother, Gary Lutnick, and 658 out of the 960 employees of Cantor Fitzgerald died in the terrorist attacks that day.

We have no way of knowing how Howard faced this tragedy after that day, we can only find some clues from the interviews. According to The Economist, in the next three years, he "cried almost every day" and even shed tears in TV interviews. At first, the media sympathized with him and praised him, but a few days later, they began to criticize him fiercely for not paying salaries to the families of the victims, calling him heartless, hypocritical, and seeking popularity. He insisted that he had no other choice: "This is just a mathematical problem... the company simply has no money." In the next five years, he donated about a quarter of the remaining employees' salaries to the fund for the families of the victims. As time went on, the company recovered. He said that his employees "sewed up his soul again".

Fortunately, Howard pushed Cantor Fitzgerald's electronic trading subsidiary eSpeed to go public in 1999. This electronic trading system did not require brokers, which was also one of the key reasons Cantor Fitzgerald survived after the '9.11' incident. Due to the loss of a large number of employees, they were forced to adopt electronic trading to replace the traditional operation of the government bond market.

According to the Associated Press, in 2013, Cantor Fitzgerald reached a $135 million settlement with American Airlines and insurance companies over lawsuits related to death and personal injury. Howard said at the time, "We can never, and will never, regard this event as 'ordinary.' There is no way for us to describe this compromise in terms such as 'ordinary,' 'fair,' or 'reasonable.' The only thing we can say is that this matter ended in legal form."

Trump mentioned the tragedy when nominating Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce, calling him the embodiment of unwavering resilience in the face of unspeakable tragedy.

Musk endorsed him as the Minister of Finance, but he took the path of Minister of Commerce

As a billionaire, his remarks always lean towards the traditional blue-collar workers in the United States. During his campaign, Trump proposed imposing a 60% tariff on Chinese imported goods and a maximum tariff of 20% on all other imported goods to the United States. Howard explicitly supported this plan in an interview with CNBC in September. He said, 'Tariffs are an excellent tool that the president can use - we need to protect American workers.'

He is also a strong supporter of the MAGA movement. Howard is one of the main fundraisers for the Trump 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns. He has hosted fundraising events at his Manhattan home and publicly supported Trump's policies.

In October 2024, Lutnick delivered a speech at the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden, emphasizing the strong performance of the American economy in 1900 and advocating the restoration of high tariffs and income tax-free policies. Howard claimed that he missed the era in America when there was no income tax.

In 2022, he pushed for the listing of the right-wing video platform Rumble, providing a platform for public figures rejected by mainstream tech giants to speak out. "This is the return of the free speech internet," he said. "We just want the America we grew up in."

Earlier, billionaire Elon Musk and others in Trump's circle urged him to drop the former front-runner for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, and instead support Howard. Musk said in a post, "Bessent is a 'by the book' choice, while Howard Lutnick will truly drive change."

However, Howard Lutnick ultimately did not become the Secretary of the Treasury, but was nominated instead as the Secretary of Commerce.

Howard Lutnick's encryption remarks

Howard Lutnick and his company's relationship and support in the encryption field are real. In an interview with CNBC podcast last year, he said, "I am a supporter of Cryptocurrency, but I am very clear: BTC, just BTC. Other Tokens are not worth mentioning." He also added, "I strongly support a stable coin called Tether."

Earlier, he said at the BTC conference: "BTC is like gold and should be freely traded anywhere in the world. As the world's largest wholesaler, we will do our best to achieve this goal. BTC should be traded globally without exception or limitation, just like gold."

According to Coindesk, his company is not only the manager of Tether's reserves, but also jointly handles US Treasury bond transactions; Cantor Fitzgerald recently announced a BTC financing business, planning to provide leverage to BTC investors, with an initial capital of up to 20 billion US dollars.

In the latest X release, Howard said, "Thank you, President Trump, for trusting me to help achieve the goal of 'Making America Great Again'. As the next Secretary of Commerce, I will join the best government team in American history and fully unleash our economic potential!"