Lutnick faces questions as his sons' firm kept deep Nvidia ties
Cantor Fitzgerald, now run by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's sons, cut its reported Nvidia stake by nearly half while arranging billions in financing for the chipmaker's partners.
A shrinking stake, and business that kept growing
Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street firm formerly chaired by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and now run by his sons Brandon and Kyle, reported a nearly 50% decline in the number of Nvidia shares it held between September 2025 and March 2026, according to a CNBC analysis of securities filings that excludes options. Nvidia had been one of the largest stock positions reported in the firm's filings.
The firm disclosed more than 3.5 million Nvidia shares worth $479 million at the end of 2024. That share count held steady through September 2025, while its value climbed 36% to $652 million as the Trump administration moved over the summer to ease restrictions on Nvidia's H20 chip sales to China. Over the following six months, the number of shares fell 49%, to 3 million in December and 1.78 million by the end of March 2026, with their value dropping from $652 million to $310 million. Holdings stayed near that lower level through June 30, at 1.81 million shares, and the firm's next quarterly filing is due Monday.
Even as it pared back the stake, Cantor kept doing business across Nvidia's AI empire. In late September, it hosted Huang and other Nvidia executives for investor meetings in New York, and an Oct. 3 research report from Cantor analyst C.J. Muse and colleagues maintained a $350 target and an overweight rating on the stock, saying: “We continue to view NVDA as the best risk/reward in our coverage.”
The May timeline: warnings, a $3 billion deal, and approvals
The decline coincided with White House and U.S. intelligence officials pressing Lutnick to crack down on Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company suspected of funneling Nvidia's advanced AI chips to China. Lutnick repeatedly resisted those efforts, Axios reported on Nov. 11, even after President Donald Trump authorized new export restrictions on the companies for a third time on Nov. 5.
As concerns about Huang escalated inside the administration in May, Cantor was helping finance the expansion of one of Nvidia's newest business partners. On May 7, Nvidia and Australia-based cloud provider IREN announced a five-year, $3.4 billion cloud contract and a partnership giving Nvidia the right to invest up to $2.1 billion in IREN. Five days later, IREN priced a convertible bond offering that ultimately raised $3 billion when it closed on May 14, with Cantor as one of seven bookrunners alongside JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.
On the day the offering closed, May 14, Lutnick's Commerce Department quietly cleared roughly 10 Chinese companies, including Alibaba and ByteDance, to buy Nvidia's advanced H200 chips, though some of those approvals predated the intelligence memo. Howard Lutnick had already been sent a highly classified intelligence memo detailing concerns about Huang's relationship, according to a Nov. 10 Axios report, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Trump about the relationship on May 12, the New York Times reported. By the end of June, Cantor reported $115 million in IREN shares and $362 million in Nvidia shares, together more than 9% of the value of its reported $5.2 billion in securities holdings, excluding options.
- End of 2024More than 3.5 million shares, worth $479 million
- September 2025More than 3.5 million shares, worth $652 million
- December 20253 million shares
- March 20261.78 million shares, worth $310 million
- June 30, 20261.81 million shares
No evidence of wrongdoing — but the appearance question
CNBC said there is no evidence that Lutnick's sons had advance knowledge of the intelligence concerns, that changes in Cantor's reported holdings were tied to any warnings, or that the firm's business interests influenced their father's decisions. A Cantor spokesperson said the firm has to date held only immaterial stand-alone proprietary positions in Nvidia, and that the positions in its 13F filings were entered into in the ordinary course of business in connection with client swap transactions.
Still, ethics expert Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, said that while there is no proof of Lutnick sharing nonpublic information with Cantor Fitzgerald, “the appearance doesn't look great.” He added: “His conversations with his sons better be about publicly available information.” Cantor Chairman Brandon Lutnick praised the chipmaker on Fox Business on Wednesday, saying: “Nvidia is one of the great companies on the planet, and they have an amazing leadership team.”
Trump is standing by Lutnick. A White House official told Reuters on Thursday that the president maintains 'complete confidence' in the commerce secretary. But cracks emerged on Friday, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on CNBC's 'Squawk Box' that the departments of Treasury, Defense and State and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative all 'were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months,' and pointed to Commerce as the department responsible for imposing the list. On Wednesday, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons demanded that Lutnick, Rubio and White House chief of staff Stephen Miller preserve records on Nvidia's chip exports to China. Nvidia shares closed at $162.85 on Friday, down 2.01%.
