Trump Picks Howard Lutnick for Commerce Secretary

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2024 – President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday he wanted billionaire executive Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and a cryptocurrency enthusiast, to head the Commerce Department.

In addition to a sweeping array of responsibilities and subagencies, Commerce houses the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the agency responsible for managing a $42.5 billion broadband expansion program. 

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program is inching toward breaking ground, with every state’s implementation plan approved and eight states currently soliciting grant applications. Analysts have speculated a Trump NTIA might still want to change BEAD rules to be more favorable for non-fiber providers – Trump advisor Elon Musk owns the satellite ISP Starlink and both have criticized the program’s fiber preference.

Evan Feinman, the program's director, has pushed back on that idea, saying he doesn't see a major rule change or plan on leaving. The most senior NTIA official, Administrator Alan Davidson, is likely to be replaced in the new administration.

NTIA also handles government spectrum and is in the process of studying several bands for potential repurposing, an effort to find more airwaves to satisfy commercial demand.

Lutnick hasn’t been vocal on broadband or telecom issues, but he has spoken favorably about Trump’s campaign promise to put widespread tariffs on imports.

“He will lead our Tariff and Trade agenda,” Trump said in a statement announcing his pick.

USTelecom, the major broadband industry group, was happy. 

“Broadband is – quite literally – the digital backbone of our modern economy and we look forward to working with Howard Lutnick and the Commerce Department team to advance America’s global connectivity leadership by deploying more broadband, collaborating to prevent cyber threats, and spurring innovation throughout the economy,” CEO Jonathan Spalter said in a statement.

Lutnick has been leading the Trump-Vance transition team along with Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who previously led Trump’s Small Business Administration. Lutnick once appeared on Trump’s NBC reality show, “The Apprentice," and has become a part of the president-elect’s inner circle

What else to know about Lutnick's background

Lutnick been serving the transition team while maintaining his position as CEO of investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald.

The nomination would put Lutnick in charge of a sprawling Cabinet agency that is involved in funding new computer chip factories, imposing trade restrictions, releasing economic data and monitoring the weather. It is also a position in which connections to CEOs and the wider business community are crucial.

He was Elon Musk’s pick to lead the Treasury Department

Musk and others in Trump’s orbit called on Trump last week to dump previous front-runner for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, in favor of Lutnick. Musk said in a post that “Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnick will actually enact change.”

The treasury role has been at the center of an unusual high-profile jockeying within the Trump world. At the same time, the position is closely watched in financial circles, where a disruptive nominee could have immediate negative consequences on the stock market, which Trump watches closely. Trump has yet to decide on one of the top remaining vacancies in his proposed cabinet.

The major remaining nominees for the role are Bessent, former Federal Reserve board governor Kevin Warsh, Apollo Global Management Chief Executive Marc Rowan, and Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty, Trump's former Japan ambassador.

He is a major supporter of Trump's tariffs plan

Trump on the campaign trail proposed a 60% tariff on goods from China — and a tariff of up to 20% on everything else the United States imports. On the campaign trail, Trump portrayed the taxes on imports as both a negotiating tool to hammer out better trade terms and as a way to generate revenue to fund tax cuts elsewhere.

An advocate for imposing wide-ranging tariffs, Lutnick gave full-throated support for Trump's tariffs plan in a CNBC interview in September. “Tariffs are an amazing tool for the president to use — we need to protect the American worker," he said.

Mainstream economists are generally skeptical of tariffs, considering them a mostly inefficient way for governments to raise money and promote prosperity.

His brother and hundreds of Cantor employees were killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks

Lutnick's brother, Gary Lutnick, and 658 of 960 Cantor Fitzgerald employees were killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. The firm lost two-thirds of its employees that day. Lutnick is a member of the Board of Directors of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the Partnership for New York City.

After Cantor Fitzgerald settled a wrongful death and personal injuries case against American Airlines and insurance carriers in 2013 for $135 million, Lutnick said: “We could never, and will never, consider it ordinary. For us, there is no way to describe this compromise with inapt words like ordinary, fair or reasonable. All we can say is that the legal formality of this matter is over.”

Trump's Tuesday announcement on the Commerce Department nomination mentioned Lutnick's loss — stating he was “the embodiment of resilience in the face of unspeakable tragedy.”

He's a major supporter of cryptocurrency

Lutnick is a proponent of advancing aims of the cryptocurrency industry — namely, the cryptocurrency Tether.

Cryptocurrencies are forms of digital money that can be traded over the internet without relying on the global banking system. Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency.

“Bitcoin is like gold and should be free trade everywhere in the world,” Lutnick said at a bitcoin conference earlier this year. “And as the largest wholesaler in the world we’re going to do everything in our power to make it so. Bitcoin should trade the same as gold everywhere in the world without exception and without limitation.”

Trump has taken on a favorable view of cryptocurrencies — from announcing in May that the campaign would begin accepting donations in cryptocurrency as part of an effort to build what it calls a “crypto army” leading up to Election Day. He has also launched a cryptocurrency platform called World Liberty Financial with members of his family earlier this year.

Fatima Hussein of the Associated Press contributed to this report.