Who is Howard Lutnick? Jewish billionaire is Trump transition leader

Howard Lutnick, chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald LP, arrives for a campaign event with former US President Donald Trump, not pictured, at Madison Square Garden in New York, on Sunday, October 27, 2024. Photo by Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images

By means of Lauren Markoe
November 7, 2024

Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and megadonor to Jewish and Israeli causes, invited 130 friends to his home in the Hamptons in August and raised $15 million that evening for former President Donald Trump’s election campaign.

The president-elect attended that dinner and soon after named Lutnick co-leader of his transition team. Over the course of the election, Lutnick increased $75 million for Trump’s campaignnot including the $10 million he personally donated.

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting President Trump at my home, surrounded by 130 supporters who share his vision for America. During the evening he answered questions and spoke about the most important topics affecting our country and the world as a whole. I believe his policies… pic.twitter.com/jF2wIaqLbm

— Howard Lutnick (@howardlutnick) August 9, 2024

Lutnick at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, the Ohel

Lutnick addressed the crowd at Madison Square Garden who came to cheer on Trump nine days before Election Day. He is now sifting through resumes, trying to figure out who will help the president-elect lead the country. He himself has been that named as a possible member of the government – perhaps as finance minister, perhaps as ambassador to Israel. He said he would decline the ambassadorship.

The billionaire said on Fox and Friends last week that he spoke “every day” with Trump, whom he has known since the turn of the century, when they both attended some of the same charity galas in New York. He agrees appeared about Trump’s ‘The Celebrity Apprentice’.

Last week he accompanied Trump to Ohel, where Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, is buried; it is a frequent stop for candidates trying to show respect for the Orthodox Jewish community.

In recent months, Lutnick has been Trump’s most enthusiastic contact to the business world. He has appeared on financial news shows, at the Garden and at fundraisers to pitch the former president’s plan for tariffs and tax cuts.

But this isn’t the first time the 63-year-old Lutnick has attracted national attention. While many may not recognize his name, they may remember a Wall Street tycoon crying on national television in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

Lutnick guides Cantor Fitzgerald through the tragedy of 9/11

On September 11, 2001, Lutnick was CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a firm that conducts trillions of dollars in bond market transactions every day and had its New York headquarters in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, floors 101 through 105.

Cantor’s brother Gary died in the 2001 terrorist attack on the buildings, which killed more Cantor Fitzgerald employees (658) than employees of any other company. Lutnick himself survived because he took his son to his first day of kindergarten that day before going to work.

He cried for most of his Sept. 13 interview with ABC’s Connie Chung and won the respect of millions of viewers when he said he searched hospitals for every missing worker, not just his brother.

“Here’s my list, here’s everyone I have. Find someone on this list,” he said, while there was still hope of finding survivors. ‘Cause if you find someone on this list, I can call them, and I can give someone else some hope, a dream, maybe, maybe they can kiss their children. “I would really like to find my brother, but I would also like to find their brother, or their wife, or their husband.”

“Howard Lutnick, a personality this country will not forget,” ABC News anchor Peter Jennings told viewers when the interview was over.

The country may have forgotten about Lutnick in the intervening years, but he’s back on their screens.

At the rally for Trump at Madison Square Garden, he spoke about his brother and the Cantor Fitzgerald employees who died on September 11. He told people how the company had raised $180 million to support the families of those employees by cutting the paychecks of surviving employees by 25%. (Lutnick too fainted after the show when several 9/11 widows said their husbands’ paychecks stopped coming just days after the attack.)

He continued the meeting by shouting himself hoarse, decrying the North American Free Trade Agreement, promising a balanced budget and “the best team to ever enter government.”

“We must elect Donald J. Trump as president because we must crush the jihad!” he shouted to the Garden to loud cheers.

Family tragedies, campus protests

Lutnick grew up in Jericho, on New York’s Long Island, with his younger brother Gary and older sister Edie.

His mother died of lymphoma when he was in high school. His father died after a nurse accidentally administered 100 times the dose of chemotherapy he should have received; Lutnick was in his freshman year at Haverford College at the time. Haverford subsequently gave Lutnick a full scholarship. In return, he has become Pennsylvania’s small liberal arts school largest donor.

Over the past year, pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza have rocked many American campuses. Ludnick said he thought Haverford could have done a better job protecting Jewish students.

“I can’t lose my love for Haverford College – that’s not possible,” Lutnick told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “But I can express my deep disappointment in the lack of moral clarity of their leadership.”

Lutnick married Allison Lambert in 1994, who received her law degree from Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law. Their wedding, at the Plaza Hotel in New York, was officiated by David Benedict, the late former cantor of Temple Israel, a Reform congregation on Long Island.

Donations to Harris, Jewish and Israeli institutions

In the past, but not recently, Lutnick had donated to both Democrats and Republicans. Allison Lambert, now Allison Lutnick, donated to Kamala Harris’s 2016 Senate campaign. When asked about that donation on Bloomberg television in July, Lutnick said his wife has become a strong supporter of Trump because of Israel, which he called “her main issue.”

The Lutnicks have four children, one of whom’s bar mitzvah ended up in the tabloids.

Ryan Lutnick, whose first day of school fell on September 11, had his bar mitzvah party six years ago at the Metropolitan Museum’s Temple of Dendur, the The New York Post Page six gossip column reported. It quoted an insider as saying that an appearance by rapper Rich the Kid at the event likely cost “between $200,000 and $300,000.”

According to the tabloid, the guest list includes: Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, Melania Trump’s former advisor Stephanie Winston Wolkoff and publicist Alison Brod.

Lutnick has long supported Jewish organizations.

Among them: Park Avenue Synagogue; the Synagogue of the Hamptons where he is honorary trusteeand United Hatzalah, a Jerusalem-based Israeli emergency medical response group. Lutnick and his wife chairman of United Hatzalah’s annual gala in New York this year, the first since Oct. 7, organizers noted, linking Lutnick’s loss of his brother, friends and employees in the Sept. 11 terror attack to Hamas’ terror attack on Israel.

Lutnick has said that while he gave to Trump in past election cycles, his enthusiasm for the former president has increased dramatically this year. told The Philadelphia Inquirer, because of Israel.

“That was huge for me,” he said.

Lauren Markoe is news editor of the Come on. She was born in the Bronx and reported for her The Patriot Ledgerseveral McClatchy newspapers in the South, and Religion News Service, where she was also editor-in-chief. She also produced live radio shows at WAMU in Washington, DC, where she lives.

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