Donald Trump has selected Wall Street billionaire and Bitcoin bull Howard Lutnick to serve as his Commerce Secretary, reports the Wall Street Journal. By doing so, Trump has rejected the investor’s reported push to run the Treasury Department, a position with far greater sway over the U.S. economy.
Running the Department of Commerce is certainly no small prize for Lutnick, who is currently co-chairing Trump’s transition team. As Commerce chief—if confirmed by the U.S. Senate—Lutnick would handle a variety of tasks, including overseeing international trade and tariffs, conducting the census, and running the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
And yet, the influence and prestige of the Commerce Secretary position pales in comparison to that of the U.S. Treasury Secretary—a job Lutnick strongly desired and lobbied for aggressively in recent days, according to a report in The New York Times.
Lutnick reportedly wanted to run the U.S. economy so badly that his eagerness irritated Trump, and caused the president-elect to seek out other candidates for the Treasury post.
As Commerce Secretary, Lutnick will now have substantially less sway over crypto policy than he would have had he been tapped to run the Treasury.
Lutnick is a major Bitcoin believer whose firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, custodies billions of dollars worth of assets for stablecoin giant Tether. As Treasury Secretary, he would have been able to reverse Biden-era policies that, from stablecoins to crypto privacy tools, have placed the U.S. government in opposition to some of crypto’s most popular offerings.
He would have also been in a position to advance Trump’s stated plan to establish a federal strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Now, the odds of Trump choosing a pro-crypto Treasury chief appear up in the air. Scott Bessent, who was a frontrunner for the job last week before Lutnick began campaigning against him, has indicated support both for crypto and for Trump’s Bitcoin reserve plans.
But Lutnick’s jockeying for the Treasury post may have turned Trump off of Bessent as well. The president-elect is now reportedly set to interview two new candidates for the job this week: former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh and Wall Street investor Marc Rowan. Neither man boasts strong crypto ties.
Warsh has long advocated for the creation of an American central bank digital currency (CBDC), a development that many in crypto have attempted to prevent for years due to privacy concerns. Rowan, meanwhile, expressed skepticism as recently as February about the need for digital assets to be a part of the U.S. economy.
Editor's note: This story was updated after publication with additional details.
Edited by Andrew Hayward