SUBJECT-9792.dossier · company · status: active
CF
subject of file

Cantor Fitzgerald

Financial services; U.S. government bond dealer; Tether reserve custodian
Tracked because U.S. primary dealer that has served as custodian for Tether's U.S. Treasury reserves; structured as a private partnership so per-partner economic interests (including those of Howard Lutnick) are not publicly disclosed; presents a documented financial-political linkage between the largest stablecoin issuer and a U.S. Cabinet officer's prior partnership.
Editorial summary · AI-drafted from public records

Global financial services firm. Historically led by Howard Lutnick, now under his son Brandon Lutnick while Howard serves as Commerce Secretary. Controls one of the largest inventories of U.S. government securities. Serves as custodian of Tether stablecoin reserves.

Facts on record44
Connections mapped13
Sources cited27
Inferential claims1
Evidence: 14P+6 25S+17 5I
Network web → Timeline → Compare with… → Position Drift → Coverage tone → View on Graph → View Card → Conduct Profile → Export CSV JSON Dossier ← Entity Directory
Stated vs Revealed
No documented contradictions on file.
[PUBLIC COST ESTIMATE]
At least $100.0B in documented public funds flow through entities connected to this profile, while 10 elected officials hold documented connections.
$100.0BContract Value
1Money Chains
2Traced Hops
Connected Officials
Calculation Methodology

Contract values are summed from documented money flow chains where this entity appears as a source or destination node. Amounts are drawn from USASpending.gov, FEC filings, SEC EDGAR, or LD-2 lobbying registrations.

Donor contributions aggregate documented amounts from the donor_interests table, sourced from FEC individual and PAC contribution filings.

Connected officials are elected officials in our database with a mapped relationship (lobbying, board membership, campaign contribution, etc.) to this entity.

Annualised flow represents the total documented dollar amount traced through money flow hops involving this entity. Where hop-level amounts are unavailable, the chain-level documented total is used as a conservative upper bound.

All figures are drawn from public filings. Estimates are conservative — undisclosed transactions, dark money, and vanish-point hops are excluded from totals. This is a minimum documented floor, not a ceiling.

PATTERN elected official → [colleague] → elected official → [dono... 1108× PATTERN company → [donor] → elected official → [donor] → person 769× PATTERN company → [donor] → person 746× PATTERN person → [employment] → company → [donor] → person 542× PATTERN company → [investor] → company → [investor] → company 415×
Connection Map
Key Connections
→ Tether company
custodian-client
Cantor Fitzgerald custodies a substantial share of Tether's U.S. Treasury reserves.
→ Defend American Jobs PAC organization
Donation recipient
Cantor Fitzgerald donated $10 million to Defend American Jobs, a super PAC led by a Tether executive, in 2024.
→ Donald Trump person
donor
Howard Lutnick, Cantor Fitzgerald's leader, personally donated $1 million to the Trump 47 Committee and additional amounts to Trump-affiliated PACs in the 2024 cycle.
← Bill Hagerty elected official
regional_banking_relationship
Cantor Fitzgerald maintains regional banking relationships in Tennessee through its Cantor Commercial Real Estate subsidiary.
→ SoftBank Vision Fund company
investor
SoftBank co-founded Twenty One Capital with Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether in April 2025.
→ SoftBank Investment Advisers company
investor
SoftBank co-founded Twenty One Capital with Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether in April 2025.
→ Twenty One Capital company
investor
Cantor Fitzgerald serves as custodian of Tether reserves; Twenty One Capital is partnered with Tether through Brandon Lutnick.
→ Rumble company
spac_sponsor
Cantor Fitzgerald sponsored CF Acquisition Corp. VIII which executed the SPAC merger that took Rumble public. Cantor Fitzgerald retained warrants and relationships post-merger.
Facts (44)
Data Freshness
Ageing Last update: 160d ago · Avg age: 1002d
Confidence Tiers: Primary Source — cross-referenced government/corporate filings Pending Review — sourced but not independently verified AI Inference — analytical hypothesis from cross-referencing
✓ Verified Findings (39)
Independently re-checked: a second model read the source artifact and confirmed it supports the extracted claim.
✓ verified Pending Review The Commerce Department conditionally agreed to a $1.577 billion investment in USA Rare Earth (USAR) on January 26, 2026, a deal for which Cantor Fitzgerald served as the lead placement agent.
Date: 2026-01-26 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Tether’s loan to the Lutnick family is secured by 'more than half the equity in Cantor Fitzgerald,' establishing Tether as a senior creditor to its own reserve custodian.
Date: 2025-10-07 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Howard Lutnick's children's trust, Dynasty Trust A, received a loan of an undisclosed amount from Tether on October 7, 2025, to facilitate the purchase of Lutnick's equity in Cantor Fitzgerald.
Date: 2025-10-07 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Over the 2023-2024 cycle, Defend American Jobs made approximately $57 million in total independent expenditures, of which more than $40 million was concentrated on the Ohio Republican Senate primary and general election supporting Bernie Moreno against Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown.
Date: 2024-06-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review The FEC's electronic database systematically double-counts crypto-to-cash conversion transactions for Fairshake and likely its affiliated PACs, meaning published receipt totals for the Fairshake network overstate actual capital raised by an estimated $40 million for the 2024 cycle, per DL News forensic analysis confirmed by OpenSecrets deputy research director Brendan Glavin.
Date: 2024-06-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Defend American Jobs disbursed independent expenditures to Main Street Media Group (PO Box 25093, Alexandria, VA 22313) totaling at least $1,507,944 in the 2024 cycle for media buys in Utah Senate races, per FEC filing image 202406169649032623.
Date: 2024-06-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review In September 2024, Fairshake transferred $15 million to Defend American Jobs and $5 million to Protect Progress in the same reporting window while receiving only approximately $1.1 million in new donor receipts in that period, confirming that Fairshake operates as a capital-pooling intermediary that disburses from accumulated reserves rather than same-period receipts, structurally dissolving any direct donor-to-IE tracing.
Date: 2024-06-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review In the 2025-2026 FEC reporting cycle (January 2025 through March 2026), Defend American Jobs received $9,000,000 in transfers from affiliated committees and $350,000 in itemized individual contributions, with zero direct contributions from other PACs or party committees.
Date: 2026-06-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Defend American Jobs's FEC-registered committee ID is C00836221, not C00835975 as cited in the source database; C00836221 was registered March 29, 2023 with treasurer Lisa Lisker at 228 S Washington St Suite 115, Alexandria, VA 22314.
Date: 2023-06-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether co-founded the Bitcoin holding company Twenty One Capital (NASDAQ: XXI) with SoftBank in April 2025.
Date: 2025-04-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review The loan to Dynasty Trust A is secured by 'more than half the equity in Cantor Fitzgerald,' effectively making Tether a senior creditor to its own custodian's parent company.
Date: 2025-10-07 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Howard Lutnick's children's trust, Dynasty Trust A, received an undisclosed loan from Tether on October 7, 2025, one day after his divestiture from Cantor Fitzgerald.
Date: 2025-10-07 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald is one of approximately two dozen U.S. Treasury primary dealers, giving it direct access to Treasury auctions across the curve.
Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor's role as Tether reserve custodian gives it exposure to the operational fees, repo financing, and securities lending economics associated with managing tens of billions of dollars in T-Bills on behalf of a single counterparty.
Date: 2024-06-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald is structured as a private partnership; per-partner economic interests in the firm's revenue are not publicly disclosed.
Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald is one of the U.S. Treasury's primary dealers, giving it direct access to Treasury auctions and to fees on government securities transactions at scale.
Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald serves as a custodian for U.S. Treasury holdings backing the Tether stablecoin, creating a documented financial linkage between the largest stablecoin issuer and a U.S. primary dealer.
Date: 2024-06-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review The Congressional Record explicitly noted during the February 24, 2026 Senate session that 'during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee in 2025 Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick' addressed stablecoin policy — implying he took a public position on this issue as the Commerce nominee without documented recusal from Tether-affiliated matters.
Date: 2026-02-24 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald donated $10 million to a super PAC led by a Tether executive in 2024, per The Block — representing a financial relationship between Tether-linked political operations and Cantor that post-dates Lutnick's recusal from Cantor-specific matters but predates any stablecoin regulatory decisions.
Date: 2024-06-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Tether announced in September 2025 that Cantor Fitzgerald would serve as the 'designated reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer' for USA₮ — a new stablecoin product explicitly positioned for U.S. regulatory approval, creating documented alignment between Lutnick's department and his former firm's commercial interests.
Date: 2025-09-12 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Tether became the 17th largest U.S. debt holder with approximately $135 billion in Treasury holdings as of 2025, per AMBCrypto — meaning Cantor Fitzgerald, as primary custodian, holds and manages an extraordinary volume of U.S. government securities with implications for Treasury market dynamics that Commerce policy could influence.
Date: 2025-06-15 Added: 03 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald led Tether's $600 million investment round in November 2024, per Sacra — a financial relationship that predated Lutnick's Commerce confirmation and positions Cantor as both Tether's primary custodian and an equity investor in the stablecoin issuer.
Date: 2024-11-15 Added: 03 May 2026
Primary Source FEC records show Howard Lutnick personally donated $1 million to the Trump 47 Committee (Trump's 2024 general election committee) and additional amounts to Trump-affiliated PACs in the 2024 election cycle, making him one of the largest individual donors to the Trump campaign.
Date: 2024-06-15 Added: 02 May 2026 ↗ RECORDS: FEC Contribution Records — Howard Lutnick
Partially Corroborated Howard Lutnick's ethics agreement filed with the Office of Government Ethics upon his Commerce Secretary confirmation required him to recuse himself from matters directly affecting Cantor Fitzgerald for a period. However, the Tether custodial relationship and Twenty One Capital co-founding — which were active at the time of his confirmation — create ongoing structural conflicts that recusal may not fully address given Commerce Department jurisdiction over cryptocurrency regulation and stablecoin policy.
Primary Source Cantor Fitzgerald's broker-dealer subsidiary, Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., is registered with the SEC and FINRA and files annual FOCUS reports. Its investment banking subsidiary has advised on mergers, acquisitions, and capital markets transactions across healthcare, technology, and real estate.
Date: 2024-06-15 Added: 02 May 2026 ↗ SOURCE: FINRA BrokerCheck — Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
Partially Corroborated Cantor Fitzgerald has sponsored multiple SPACs across sectors. Its SPAC sponsorship business generates economics through discounted founder shares that vest upon deal completion, creating a financial incentive to complete transactions regardless of target quality. This model has been scrutinized by the SEC in its 2022 and 2023 SPAC reform rulemaking.
Primary Source Cantor Fitzgerald sponsored CF Acquisition Corp. VIII (later CF Acquisition Corp. VI in some filings), the SPAC that merged with Rumble Inc. and took it public on NASDAQ in September 2022. Howard Lutnick chaired the SPAC. Cantor retained warrants and sponsor shares — so-called 'founder shares' at deeply discounted prices — as part of the standard SPAC sponsor economics.
Partially Corroborated Cantor Fitzgerald is a co-founder and financial backer of Twenty One Capital, a Bitcoin holding company structured similarly to MicroStrategy, announced in April 2025. Twenty One Capital was co-founded with Tether and SoftBank, with Cantor Fitzgerald holding an equity stake. The company launched with approximately 42,000 Bitcoin.
Partially Corroborated Cantor Fitzgerald serves as a custodian of U.S. Treasury securities held as reserves backing Tether's USDT stablecoin. Tether holds the majority of its approximately $100 billion+ in reserves in short-term U.S. Treasury bills. Cantor Fitzgerald's custodial relationship with Tether was disclosed by Tether and reported by the Financial Times in 2023.
Partially Corroborated Brandon Lutnick, Howard Lutnick's son, was appointed Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald upon Howard's entry into government. Brandon Lutnick had previously served in an investment role at the firm. The father-to-son succession was announced without a competitive search or independent board process, reflecting the firm's private, family-controlled governance.
Primary Source Howard Lutnick served as Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald from 1992 until his confirmation as U.S. Secretary of Commerce on February 5, 2025. He was one of the largest individual donors to Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.
✓ verified Pending Review On September 11, 2001, Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 of its approximately 960 New York employees — nearly 70% of its Manhattan workforce — when the firm's offices on floors 101-105 of One World Trade Center were destroyed. Howard Lutnick, who was not in the building that morning, took over management of the firm and pledged 25% of profits for 10 years to the families of the deceased.
Date: 2001-09-11 Added: 02 May 2026
Primary Source Cantor Fitzgerald is a designated primary dealer with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — one of approximately 24 institutions authorized to trade directly with the Fed in open market operations and U.S. Treasury auctions. Primary dealer status gives Cantor direct access to Treasury debt issuance and Fed liquidity facilities.
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald was founded in 1945 by B. Gerald Cantor and John Fitzgerald as a government securities dealer. It is headquartered at 110 East 59th Street, New York. It is privately held and does not file public financial statements, though its broker-dealer subsidiaries file with FINRA and the SEC.
Date: 1945-06-15 Added: 02 May 2026
✓ verified Pending Review The firm was historically led by Howard Lutnick, who served as chairman and CEO before becoming Commerce Secretary.
Added: 16 Apr 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald's government securities business positions it at the intersection of federal financial markets and the Lutnick family's private interests.
Added: 16 Apr 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald is a global financial services firm that controls one of the largest inventories of U.S. government securities.
Added: 16 Apr 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Cantor Fitzgerald serves as custodian of Tether stablecoin reserves, creating a direct financial relationship with the largest stablecoin issuer.
Added: 16 Apr 2026
✓ verified Pending Review Brandon Lutnick now serves as chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, taking operational control when his father entered government.
Added: 16 Apr 2026
AI Analysis (1)
AI-generated inferences derived from cross-referencing primary and secondary data. These are analytical hypotheses, not established facts — they are the platform's read, not its record, and the verification pipeline covers their provenance, not their truth. Where verification stops →
⚠ flagged by Gemini AI Inferencew·40 Cantor Fitzgerald filed filing with the SEC on 2006-03-10. Accession number: N/A.
All Connections (13)
→ Tether company
custodian-client primary since 2021
Cantor Fitzgerald custodies a substantial share of Tether's U.S. Treasury reserves.
→ Twenty One Capital company
investor, founder primary
Cantor Fitzgerald serves as custodian of Tether reserves; Twenty One Capital is partnered with Tether through Brandon Lutnick. · Cantor Fitzgerald co-founded Twenty One Capital alongside Tether and SoftBank in April 2025 as a Bitcoin holding company. Brandon Lutnick chairs Twenty One Capital while his father sits as Commerce Secretary with regulatory authority over cryptocurrency.
→ Rumble company
spac_sponsor primary
Cantor Fitzgerald sponsored CF Acquisition Corp. VIII which executed the SPAC merger that took Rumble public. Cantor Fitzgerald retained warrants and relationships post-merger.
→ SoftBank Vision Fund company
investor primary since 2025
SoftBank co-founded Twenty One Capital with Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether in April 2025.
investor primary since 2025
SoftBank co-founded Twenty One Capital with Cantor Fitzgerald and Tether in April 2025.
→ Defend American Jobs PAC organization
Donation recipient primary since 2024
Cantor Fitzgerald donated $10 million to Defend American Jobs, a super PAC led by a Tether executive, in 2024.
→ Donald Trump person
donor primary since 2024
Howard Lutnick, Cantor Fitzgerald's leader, personally donated $1 million to the Trump 47 Committee and additional amounts to Trump-affiliated PACs in the 2024 cycle.
← Brandon Lutnick person
employment, ceo primary
Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, taking operational control when father became Commerce Secretary. · Howard Lutnick's son became Chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald when his father entered government. The succession was not subject to an independent process, maintaining family control of the firm.
← Howard Lutnick person
employment, former_ceo primary
Former chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. Transferred control to son upon appointment as Commerce Secretary. · Lutnick served as Chairman and CEO from 1992 until his Commerce Secretary confirmation in February 2025. He retains ongoing financial interests in the firm through ownership, creating a structural conflict with his regulatory portfolio.
primary_dealer primary
Cantor Fitzgerald is a designated FRBNY primary dealer, authorized to bid at Treasury auctions and trade directly with the Fed. This status gives it privileged access to U.S. government debt markets and Fed liquidity facilities.
← National Economic Council (NEC) government agency
employment inferential since 1991
Howard Lutnick, incoming NEC Director, is CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. Cantor Fitzgerald is a known entity.
← Bill Hagerty elected official
regional_banking_relationship primary since 2024
Cantor Fitzgerald maintains regional banking relationships in Tennessee through its Cantor Commercial Real Estate subsidiary.
← Chuck Schumer elected official
donor inferential since 1982
Schumer told the Associated Press that, anticipating his 1982 reapportionment fight, he 'set about making friends on Wall Street, tapping the city's top law firms and securities houses for campaign donations.' Cantor Fitzgerald is a major Wall Street securities firm based in New York.
Money Flows Passing Through (1)
Documented payment chains where this entity appears as a source, hop, or vanish point. All chains →
active 3 hops ⚠ 1 vanish USD 100000000000.00
Tether reserves → Cantor Fitzgerald custody → Lutnick equity stake
Sources (27)
2006-03-10 ↗ SEC EDGAR: S-1/A — CANTOR FITZGERALD & CO (2006-03-10) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2005-03-14 ↗ SEC EDGAR: S-1/A — CANTOR FITZGERALD & CO (2005-03-14) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2014-09-15 ↗ SEC EDGAR: filing — Cantor Fitzgerald (2014-09-15) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2021-12-27 ↗ SEC EDGAR: SC 13G — CANTOR FITZGERALD SECURITIES (2021-12-27) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2026 UNVERIFIED Research: Cantor Fitzgerald — Lobbying disclosures (no results) government_disclosure Processed 📜 Receipt
2006-10-16 ↗ SEC EDGAR: filing — Cantor Fitzgerald (2006-10-16) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2026-05-09 UNVERIFIED SEARCH_ERROR: Cantor Fitzgerald not found in usaspending claim_flag Processed 📜 Receipt
2016-12-23 ↗ SEC EDGAR: filing — Cantor Fitzgerald (2016-12-23) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2026-05-09 UNVERIFIED SEARCH_ERROR: Cantor Fitzgerald not found in opencorporates claim_flag Processed 📜 Receipt
2015-01-14 ↗ SEC EDGAR: filing — Cantor Fitzgerald (2015-01-14) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2026-05-09 UNVERIFIED SEARCH_ERROR: Cantor Fitzgerald not found in sam_gov claim_flag Processed 📜 Receipt
2006-03-10 ↗ SEC EDGAR: filing — Cantor Fitzgerald (2006-03-10) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2023-02-03 ↗ SEC EDGAR: SC 13G — CANTOR FITZGERALD SECURITIES (2023-02-03) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2025-12-19 ↗ SEC EDGAR: 4 — CANTOR FITZGERALD & CO. (2025-12-19) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2006-10-16 ↗ SEC EDGAR: S-1/A — CANTOR FITZGERALD & CO (2006-10-16) sec_filing Processed 📜 Receipt
2026 UNVERIFIED Research: Cantor Fitzgerald — Corporate registrations (no results) government_disclosure Processed 📜 Receipt
2026 UNVERIFIED Research: Cantor Fitzgerald — Court records (no results) court_document Processed 📜 Receipt
2026 UNVERIFIED Research: Cantor Fitzgerald — USASpending contracts (no results) contract Processed 📜 Receipt
2026 UNVERIFIED Research: Cantor Fitzgerald — Parliamentary records (no results) parliamentary_record Processed 📜 Receipt
2024 ↗ FINRA BrokerCheck — Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. external_handoff Processed 📜 Receipt
2024-01-24 ↗ SEC Final Rule: Special Purpose Acquisition Companies external_handoff Processed 📜 Receipt
2025 ↗ Office of Government Ethics — Presidential Appointee Disclosure Index 2025 external_handoff Processed 📜 Receipt
2024 ↗ FEC Contribution Records — Howard Lutnick external_handoff Processed 📜 Receipt
2023-01-11 ↗ Howard Lutnick's Son Brandon to Run Cantor Fitzgerald external_handoff Processed 📜 Receipt
2025-04-23 ↗ Cantor Fitzgerald, Tether and SoftBank to Create Bitcoin Company Twenty One Capi… external_handoff Processed 📜 Receipt
2023-09-07 ↗ Tether invests Treasury reserves via Cantor Fitzgerald external_handoff Processed 📜 Receipt
2024 ↗ Primary Dealers List — Federal Reserve Bank of New York external_handoff Processed 📜 Receipt