Billionaire Trump Backer Bill Ackman Skewers Howard Lutnick’s Glaring ‘Conflict of Interest’: ‘He Profits When Our Economy Implodes!’
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a Trump 2024 megadonor, took to X this week to skewer Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s Wall Street ties and accuse him of seeking to profit from the economic chaos.
With markets reeling from last week’s sweeping tariffs — the Dow down 8.75%, the Nasdaq off 10.6%, and the S&P 500 sliding 9.9% — Ackman spent Sunday pleading with Trump for a 90-day pause to give time for trade negotiations and avoid a global loss of confidence in the U.S. before he unleashed on what he said was Lutnick’s glaring and “irreconcilable conflict of interest.”
“I just figured out why @howardlutnick is indifferent to the stock market and the economy crashing,” he wrote. “He and Cantor are long bonds. He profits when our economy implodes.”
He added: “It’s a bad idea to pick a Secretary of Commerce whose firm is levered long fixed income. It’s an irreconcilable conflict of interest.”
The “firm” in question is Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial powerhouse Lutnick helmed for 35 years before joining Trump’s cabinet. The point being that Cantor is heavily invested in long-term bonds — instruments that spike in value when markets crash and investors flee equities.
Ackman, then, arguing that as Americans brace for recession, Trump’s top commerce official is poised to gain.
The billionaire touted himself as “long America” while Lutnick is “short.”
Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi has now placed the odds of a U.S. recession at 45%, warning “there does not appear to be a way” to avoid it. JP Morgan became the first Wall Street bank to predict a 2025 recession resulting from the new policy, likely in the second half of the year.
Meanwhile, countries worldwide are retaliating against Trump’s tariffs, raising the specter of a full-blown trade war.
