Howard Lutnick was not in his office on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center’s north tower on the morning of Sept. 11. Instead, he was dropping off his son at his first day of kindergarten.
“That’s why I’m here with you today,” he told NY1 in a 2016 interview. “And there’s where I was standing at 8:46. Right outside the school, we took a picture.”
What You Need To Know
- Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, lost 658 employees in the World Trade Center attacks
- Lutnick attracted broad public sympathy, but opinion soured after families complained he’d abruptly stopped issuing paychecks
- He made good on his pledge to pay families 25% of the firm's profits over five years, about $180 million total
Lutnick, chairman and CEO of the financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, lost 658 employees that day, including his brother.
In the subsequent days, he gave a series of tearful interviews, generating broad public sympathy. But opinion quickly soured after families complained that Lutnick had abruptly stopped issuing paychecks.
“I can’t pay their salaries. So they think we’re doing something wrong,” Lutnick, fighting back tears, told CNN host Larry King in October 2001. “I don’t have any money to pay their salaries.”
But Lutnick made good on his pledge to give families 25% of Cantor Fitzgerald’s profits over the next five years, which amounted to about $180 million. He rebuilt and grew the company.
A charity arm, the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund became an institution, holding a celebrity-studded fundraiser every year around the 9/11 anniversary and using the funds to aid disaster victims.
In 2013, appearing alongside Sen. Charles Schumer and other local leaders in Far Rockaway, Queens, Lutnick announced Hurricane Sandy families would receive $1,000 debit cards.
“Each family gets a card like this,” he told NY1. “They open it up, and inside they get a Mastercard, and they can spend any way they want.”
Now a prominent booster of Donald Trump, Lutnick invoked 9/11 at last month’s rally at Madison Square Garden. “We must elect Donald J. Trump president because we must crush jihad,” he boomed onstage.
Lutnick, who was made co-chair of Trump’s transition team, raised eyebrows last month after he emerged from a 2.5-hour meeting with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic.
“Why do you think vaccines are safe? There’s no product liability anymore. They’re not proven,” Lutnick told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
On Tuesday, Trump named Lutnick his nominee for secretary of commerce.
If confirmed, he’ll spearhead Trump’s plans to dramatically hike tariffs and will step away from Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm he’s led for more than three decades.