The financial firm once run by Trump’s commerce secretary has been forced to clarify that it did not seek to profit from the tariff rollbacks announced on Friday.
After the Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 judgment that President Donald Trump did not have the right to impose his global tariff policy, financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald denied claims that it was attempting to cash in on the decision.
Speaking with Semafor, a spokesman said that the company “has never executed any transactions or taken risk on the legality of tariffs.”
“Any report suggesting otherwise is completely false,” he noted.
The claims stem from reporting in WIRED and elsewhere that Cantor was offering to buy rights to businesses’ tariff refunds, essentially betting that Trump’s economic ploy would be overturned, as it was on Friday.
“We’ve already put a trade through representing about ~$10 million of IEEPA Rights and anticipate that number will balloon in the coming weeks,” a Cantor representative told WIRED in July 2025.
However, the spokesperson stated recently that the sales representative “erroneously” believed the financial product was something the company would soon offer and was simply trying to drum up interest from buyers.
“The fact that Cantor didn’t [offer the product] suggests it’s keenly sensitive to the optics of Lutnick’s role,” Semafor’s Business and Finance editor Liz Hoffman wrote.
Lutnick ran the investment bank for 30 years before he was appointed to his current position in Trump’s administration. He transferred his ownership to his sons, Brandon and Kyle, in May of last year.
Though he has previously claimed to be completely independent of the financial services institution and not privy to their products and services, he has also long faced scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest.
While running Trump’s transitional operations, whistleblowers within the MAGA team claimed that Lutnick was attempting to stuff the ranks of aides and advisers with those who would personally benefit him.
A specific allegation at the time was made that Lutnick took meetings on Capitol Hill in his capacity as transition co-chair and then used those meetings to discuss issues that Cantor Fitzgerald might profit from.
“The onus is on him not to use the power in an abusive manner, and that has not been the case,” a senior Republican official told Politico at the time.
Lutnick, 63, has been a longtime personal friend of Trump and one of his closest ties to Wall Street. He personally celebrated the tariffs imposed by his boss, claiming that they would rake in “hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars” and eventually eliminate the need for most people to pay tax.
On Friday, Lutnick stood beside Trump as he threw a major tantrum over not getting his way with his key economic policy, describing the Supreme Court Justices as “fools” and “lapdogs,” and suggesting they had been bought by foreign interests.
While Trump’s original tariff strategy was deemed illegal, the president stressed he would find other ways to implement his economic plan. He has since declared a 15 percent tariff on global trade with all nations.
Lutnick recently made headlines after it was revealed that he visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in 2012.
