The financier Howard Lutnick has been given a high-profile assignment from President-elect Donald J. Trump, one that raises questions about the Wall Street executive’s dual role and what he might gain from it.
As co-chair of the transition team, Mr. Lutnick is in charge of identifying 4,000 new hires to fill the second Trump administration, including antitrust officials, securities lawyers and national security advisers who have global expertise.
But Mr. Lutnick has not stepped away from running financial firms that serve corporate clients, traders, cryptocurrency platforms and real estate ventures around the world — all of which are regulated by the same agencies whose appointees he is helping to find.
Given his sprawling business interests, it’s not known how Mr. Lutnick might keep from violating the transition’s own code of ethics, which echo federal conflict-of-interest guidelines for transition team members. The Trump transition guidelines say that individuals who work on the team must disqualify themselves from matters that may directly conflict with their own financial interests or those of an organization with which they do business.
It is not clear whether Mr. Lutnick, who gained national attention when many of his employees died in the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, has signed the code of ethics or whether he has recused himself from providing lists of possible nominees for any specific agencies that have oversight of his businesses.
Mr. Lutnick declined an interview request from The New York Times. People who work with Mr. Lutnick say that he is careful about separating his private business from his transition work.
