Undisclosed Tether Loan to Dynasty Trust Linked to Commerce Secretary Lutnick Draws Ethics Scrutiny

Dynasty Trust A, benefiting the four children of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, obtained an undisclosed loan from stablecoin issuer Tether around the time Lutnick sold billions of dollars in Cantor Fitzgerald equity to family trusts in October, according to a credit filing and people familiar with the deal. The New York filing dated Oct. 7 states the loan is secured by "all assets" of the trust, while a Cantor Fitzgerald executive said the collateral specifically includes a convertible bond giving Cantor the right to acquire a 5% equity stake in Tether, whose reserves totaled $192 billion last year and whose profits were reportedly about $10 billion. Ethics specialists cited in the report argued that, if the Tether financing helped enable Lutnick's divestiture to his children's trust, it could run counter to the intent of federal asset divestiture rules, a view disputed by a Cantor executive and rejected by a Commerce Department statement saying Lutnick has fully complied with his ethics agreement. The loan details emerge as Cantor and Tether deepen ties through a $600 million convertible bond, a $775 million investment in Rumble Inc., and the launch of Bitcoin treasury firm Twenty One Capital Inc., while Tether remains under regulatory and law enforcement scrutiny and benefits from provisions in the GENIUS Act that the President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets praised for fostering stablecoin growth.