Howard Lutnick

In 2025, Lutnick said that after meeting Epstein in 2005 he vowed never to "be in the room with that disgusting person ever again," CNN reported.

In February 2026, CBS News reported that Lutnick and Epstein had each signed, for separate companies, an agreement dated Dec. 28, 2012, to take stakes in the same firm, Adfin, and that they were in business together as recently as 2014.

Days after the CBS report, Lutnick told senators that he had visited Epstein's island during a 2012 family vacation: "We had lunch on the island, that is true, for an hour," ABC News reported.

In May 2026, Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Lutnick "wasn't 100 percent truthful with whether or not he had been on the island" but that he had not seen wrongdoing in their email correspondence, The Hill reported.

Lutnick's department controls exports of America's most advanced AI chips, and in July 2026 it let the UAE government and approved Emirati companies, including the Abu Dhabi AI company G42, get them without a license, Reuters reported.

House Democrats asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick whether he had discussed the Emirati rules with World Liberty or the Trump family. As of October 2026, no answer had surfaced.

Cantor Fitzgerald, which as of October 2026 was run by Lutnick's sons, helped raise $210 million for one of the key investors in a Kazakh tungsten project.

The New York Times has counted at least 14 critical-minerals projects or companies with ties to the Trump or Lutnick families that have received, or are seeking, more than $8.9 billion in federal support.