When the planes struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Cantor Fitzgerald was left devastated. The investment firm’s offices spanned the upper floors of the North Tower, leaving no chance of escape. In less than an hour, 658 employees were gone—more lives than any other company lost that day. Among them was the brother of CEO Howard Lutnick. For Lutnick, the grief was immediate and deeply personal, but so was the responsibility. He had to lead a company hollowed out by tragedy while caring for the families who had lost everything. What followed was a story not only of survival, but of loyalty, rebuilding, and the weight of memory.
Howard Lutnick reflects on Cantor Fitzgerald’s darkest day and the colleagues and friends who never came home.
📖 Read the Transcript
Lee Habeeb (00:00:20):
This is Our American Stories. Remembering the anniversary of 9/11. Many companies and families lost loved ones that day. I lost one of my best friends, co-captain of my high school basketball team for two years. There was nothing we didn’t do together for so many years. Paul Battini. There was one investment company that lost 658 of its 960 employees. Before that day, Cantor Fitzgerald hadn’t been all that well known beyond Wall Street. However, after 9/11, it was known as the business to have lost the most employees on 9/11. “We have death fame,” CEO Howard Lutnick said. A few days after the horrific event, Lutnick participated in an emotional interview. He didn’t just lose all those employees, by the way. One of them was his brother. Here he is explaining why he wasn’t there.
Howard Lutnick (00:01:30):
My little boy. I have a five-year-old, and it was his first day of kindergarten at Horace Mann, so I took him for his first day of big-boy school. And because of that, I was late getting down to the office, and therefore I wasn’t in the building. I was on my way. I saw the building on fire, so I didn’t go in. But I stood at the door off of Church Street, where there were flags there. And I stood at the door, and people were coming out, and I was yelling at them, you know, to run and get out. And there were police sort of around me yelling at people, telling them to get out. And I would ask them what floor they were coming from. “What floor are you coming from?” So they would say, “55,” and I’d scream, “We have 55!” Because I kept wanting to get up the building.
And, well, my brother, my brother was on the 103rd floor. He worked for me, and he worked at Cantor. And he called my sister just after the plane hit, and he told her that the smoke was pouring in. He was stuck in a corner office. There was no way out, and the smoke was coming in. Things are not good, and he’s not gonna make it. And he just wanted to say that he loved her, and he wanted to say goodbye, and tell everyone that he loved them. And then the phone went dead.
Lee Habeeb (00:02:52):
The plane crashed into floors 93 through 99. Cantor Fitzgerald was located right above that.
Howard Lutnick (00:03:00):
101 to 105, the top floors of Number One World Trade Center, which they call now the North Tower. I got to the 91st floor, and I knew if I got one employee, if one person came down from that floor, then I know that there had to be others. There would be others behind them. There would be others going out other doors. That would be good.
But I got up to 91, and then I heard this sound. It sounded like another plane was gonna hit the building. But it didn’t sound like it was far away. It sounded like it was, like, right when the ceiling is above us. It was so unbelievably loud, and someone screamed out, “Another one’s coming!” So I just turned around and ran. And I was running. It was Number Two World Trade Center collapsing. So I’m standing underneath the building like an idiot. And I started running, and I’m trying to get ahead of the smoke. And then the smoke comes around the corner on Trinity Church, where I ran, and knocks me down underneath a truck.
And I’m sitting there in this black, the blackest black that can ever be. I reached up. I tried to see if I could see, and I took my hands and I put it up, and I actually touched my eye. I couldn’t see my hand. I could feel the particles in the air. They were, they were like this big. I could feel them going in, and I couldn’t think to, like, pick up my shirt and put it… I was just sitting there thinking, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe by standing there I died.”
So I just started walking. I just started walking straight. And I just walked straight. And I just kept walking straight. And I called my wife four hours later, and she was hysterical crying. And so I understand why it took lots of people a long time. I’m a pretty together person. And four hours, I walked. I just walked north.
Lee Habeeb (00:04:32):
I just kept walking. And he just kept walking. All the Cantor Fitzgerald companies are connected by speakerphone, so there were voices heard from the tower amidst the chaos.
Howard Lutnick (00:04:45):
Yeah, we have, you know, a speakerphone because all our offices are connected. In our equity business, they were all connected to each other because they talked to each other all day. And they heard them saying, you know, “We need help. We need help. We need help.” It wasn’t screams. It was, there was nowhere to go. You couldn’t go down, couldn’t go up. There was nowhere to go.
But I don’t know of a single one of my employees who got down. Zero. Zero. And it’s really sad. But I think we’re all pulling together with a view that we wanna make things happen for them. We need to take care of them. We need to figure out how to take care of them and give them more, take care of them. And I think it’s gonna be a different kind of drive than I’ve ever had before. It’s not about my, it’s not about my family. I get to kiss my kids. I get to kiss my kids tonight, but other people don’t get to kiss their kids. And I just have to help ’em.
And I think it’s amazing. And I think it’s amazing. They have 300 people. They lost all their friends. They lost the person to their left. They lost the person to their right. And they call me up and they say, “I wanna go to work.” I said, “Why do you wanna go to work? Let’s just go to funerals.” And they go, “No, no, I wanna go to work. I can’t stay home. I can’t stay home. I have to make, I have to work. I have to do something.” So they actually wanted to try to figure out how to be in business. It’s unbelievable. It doesn’t make any sense.
But the reason they want to be in business, and there’s only one reason to be in business, is because we have to make our company be able to take care of my 700 families. 700 families. 700 families. Just can’t say it. I can’t say that.
Lee Habeeb (00:06:30):
Crying. Well, a different kind of drive that he’d never known before kicked in to Howard Lutnick and those remaining employees. Howard further explains what Cantor Fitzgerald was doing before and after.
Howard Lutnick (00:06:47):
Cantor Fitzgerald is the primary, it’s like the exchange for the world’s bond markets. I mean, it is the exchange for the world bond markets. Last year we did $50 trillion in business. Today, the remaining employees of Cantor Fitzgerald and eSpeed have worked every second since that bomb. And they made the decision, and I told them, there’s no reason for us to open. I don’t care when we open. If we open, it doesn’t matter to me.
And they collectively, 250 of them collectively, voted that they were going to open the markets. And this morning at 7 a.m., those people opened for business. Not to make money, no, but they did it because they thought if the Fed and the Treasury wanted it to be open, and it was important enough for them to show strength for America, so these markets, then they were going to do their damnedest to get it open. And they did.
And I voted against it. I said, “Why? I don’t want you to work. I want you to go home and kiss your kids and hug your families.” But they, it’s them. They wanted to do it, maybe for themselves, maybe for their friends who they lost. But right this second, our electronic systems are running around the world, and it’s, I don’t know, maybe it’s a miracle. Maybe it’s because these people are just… I don’t believe them. I think you can only be a good boss if you have the right people. And I’m glad they chose to be with me, but I’m the saddest person in the world that they chose to be with me. Chose to be with me. Too many people, too many names, so many people.
Lee Habeeb (00:08:27):
I loved. So many people we all loved. Again, that’s Howard Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. They lost so much, but they did go back to work. And here’s why. After 9/11, the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund was established. All those people went back to work for a cause, a big cause. They have distributed more than $180 million to the families of Cantor Fitzgerald, one quarter of the firm’s profits. What a great American story. What a sad American story. Cantor Fitzgerald’s story, Howard Lutnick’s story, here on Our American Stories. 9/11 remembered.
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