President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that he has picked Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as his secretary of the Department of Commerce.
The role requires Senate confirmation.
Lutnick, who leads the investment bank, has been serving as co-chair of the Trump transition team alongside Trump’s former Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon.
“Thank you, President Trump for your trust in me to help Make America Great Again. As the next Secretary of Commerce, I will join the best administration the US has ever seen and unleash our full economic potential,” Lutnick wrote on his X account following the announcement.
The two have spent the past two weeks at the Trump transition war room he has set up at Mar-a-Lago recommending and vetting potential candidates for Trump’s administration officials, sources told ABC News.
Lutnick has frequently joined Trump on the campaign trail and hosted numerous fundraisers for Trump alongside some of the major Republican donors such as John Paulson, Duke Buchan and Woody Johnson.
Howard Lutnick, Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and Co-Chair of the Trump 2024 Transition Team speaks at a rally for former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York, Oct. 27, 2024.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
The billionaire businessman was also vying for the job of secretary of the Department of the Treasury, sources said, competing against investor and hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, who had also been considered as a top contender for the role.
Lutnick’s aggressive push to be tapped as Trump’s Treasury secretary had frustrated some close to Trump, sources said. Lutnick spent hours with the president-elect nearly every day as a co-head of the transition team, sources added.
Asked if Lutnick’s efforts to get the Treasure job backfired on him, Trump’s incoming Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political and Public Affairs James Blair declined to comment on Monday.
“I don’t think I’ll comment on, on the president’s considerations right now for personnel, I think what’s important is that the president is making great picks,” Blair said.
Elon Musk has been a close ally of Lutnick, publicly endorsing him for the Treasury secretary job. The two are often seen together at events — including at the America First Policy Institute Gala at Mar-a-Lago in Florida last week.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Lutnick for the Treasury job, too.
Lutnick had donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee in 2017 and most recently donated $5 million to pro-Trump super PAC Make America Great Again Inc.
As a guest speaker at Trump campaign rallies, Lutnick frequently spoke about his experience of losing hundreds of employees as well as his brother on 9/11.
Lutnick has been a vocal advocate for cryptocurrency, speaking at the annual Bitcoin Conference in Nashville earlier this year where Trump and Robert Jr. also spoke. Cryptocurrency company Tether is among Cantor Fitzgerald’s clients.
ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, Katherine Faulders and Olivia Rubin contributed to this report.