Howard Lutnick, a wealthy donor who President Trump has picked to lead the Commerce Department, will face questioning about his financial holdings and potential conflicts of interest in a nomination hearing before the Senate Wednesday.
Mr. Lutnick is the chief executive and chairman at Cantor Fitzgerald, a Wall Street brokerage, and holds executive positions at BGC, another brokerage, and Newmark Group, a commercial real estate firm. Mr. Lutnick has promised to resign the positions if nominated.
Through Cantor and his other firms, Mr. Lutnick has acquired executive positions and holdings in a stunning array of companies. Financial disclosures filed by Mr. Lutnick last week showed that he holds or previously held executive positions in more than 800 companies, and had at least $800 million in assets.
For President Trump and his supporters, Mr. Lutnick’s wealth and business success are a strong qualification for the role of Commerce Secretary. Over the past year, Mr. Lutnick became a central economic adviser to Mr. Trump and helped to lead his transition team.
But Democrats view Mr. Lutnick’s financial ties with more skepticism, saying they could raise questions about his ability to put the interests of the American people ahead of those of himself and former business partners.
In a letter addressed to Mr. Lutnick Monday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, criticized Cantor Fitzgerald’s investments into a cryptocurrency company called Tether. She called Tether “a known facilitator of criminal activity that has been described as ‘outlaws’ favorite cryptocurrency,’” saying that the tool had financed Mexican drug cartels, terrorist groups and the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
The connections with tether “raise significant questions about your own personal judgment and the conflicts of interest that you will have if you are confirmed as Commerce Secretary,” Ms. Warren wrote to Mr. Lutnick.
As the head of the Commerce Department, Mr. Lutnick would be in charge of many government functions that have enormous sway over the business sector. The Commerce Department is in charge of promoting business interests abroad, restricting the technology sector to protect national security, and delivering government subsidies to the semiconductor and broadband industries, among other functions.
Mr. Trump has also said that Mr. Lutnick would lead the administration’s trade policy more broadly, including overseeing the United States Trade Representative, a small agency that negotiates trade deals and reports directly to the president.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Mr. Lutnick also has financial interests in the mining industry in Greenland, through Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor has invested in a company called Critical Metals Corp, which has proposed beginning to mine metals and minerals in Greenland as soon as 2026.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly proposed purchasing Greenland, which is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Demark. The governments of both Denmark and Greenland say the territory is not for sale.
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