No Cantor Fitzgerald employee working above the 91st floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower survived September 11, 2001. When American Airlines Flight 11 struck the tower at 8:46 a.m. and tore through floors 93 to 99, it destroyed the stairwells, making escape from above the impact impossible. It remains the single deadliest workplace loss of the attacks, and twenty-five years later, the firm's answer to that devastation has become a $320 million philanthropic operation still running today.
Cantor Fitzgerald had 960 New York workers at the time, meaning roughly two-thirds of its local workforce was lost that morning, according to figures reported by the New York Post. The firm's total losses included 50 contractors and visitors in addition to the 658 employees, per the same report. Among those killed was Gary Lutnick, who died on the 104th floor, while his brother, then-chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick, was spared because he was taking his son to his first day of kindergarten that morning. Cantor Fitzgerald's casualty toll was the highest of any organization on 9/11, ahead of Marsh & McLennan, which lost 295 employees and whose offices spanned the impact zone, and Aon Corporation, which lost 176, according to Leader's Edge Magazine. Euro Brokers, a firm now part of Cantor Fitzgerald, lost 61 people of its own that day, the Post reported.
A Firm That Chose Not to Fold
Rather than shutting down, surviving leadership kept Cantor Fitzgerald alive through its electronic trading infrastructure. The firm restored automated U.S. Treasury bond trading through its eSpeed platform within 48 hours, routing operations through its London office and late-arriving New York technical staff, which allowed Treasury market operations to resume when the U.S. Treasury markets reopened on September 13, 2001, according to Computerworld. Cantor was a major bond-trading firm at the time, making that technical recovery central to the company's survival.
Edith Lutnick, who was not at work that morning, co-founded the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund with her brother Howard just three days later, on September 14, 2001, with a $1 million personal contribution from Howard, as detailed by Giving Compass. Edith, now the fund's co-founder, president and executive director, spent 20-hour days in the aftermath writing thousands of checks by hand to widows and new mothers, per the Post's reporting. The firm went on to commit 25% of its profits for five years and paid for 10 years of family healthcare coverage for relatives of the 658 deceased workers, distributing roughly $180 million to families, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Howard Lutnick faced initial media backlash for freezing payroll immediately after the attacks before that profit-sharing distribution was put in place, the filing shows.
From 9/11 Families to Global Disaster Relief
The relief fund has since expanded far beyond its original mission. It has raised and distributed more than $320 million since its 2001 founding, broadening its support from 9/11 families to natural disaster relief and direct-service charities worldwide, per Business Wire. That expansion has included direct emergency aid such as $10 million in prepaid debit cards, distributed at $1,000 apiece, to families at 19 elementary schools affected by Hurricane Sandy, according to Giving Compass. The fund also provided support groups and family networks to help 9/11 victims' relatives rebuild their lives, the Post reported.
The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund is another part of the broader response to the attacks.
Much of that fundraising now flows through Cantor Fitzgerald's annual Charity Day, held on or near September 11, when the firm donates 100% of its global daily revenues. Celebrity guest traders work the floors and conduct trades with brokers and clients to help raise funds, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Post also reported that Cantor's names are arranged with meaningful adjacencies at the National September 11 Memorial, and that Charity Day proceeds support hundreds of charities and disaster relief efforts around the world.
A 25th Anniversary Anthology and a Company Tradition
Timed to the 25th anniversary, the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund released THE FAMILIES: 9/11 Anthology of Love, Loss and Lessons of Resilience, compiling 176 essays, letters, poems and recollections from survivors, family members and witnesses, with all proceeds benefiting the relief fund. Edith Lutnick and Caroline Aiken Koster, general counsel of the relief fund and a senior Cantor Fitzgerald corporate lawyer, gathered the personal stories for the collection, the Post reported. Koster, who joined Cantor Fitzgerald in 2002, has asked attendees at related events where they were on September 11 — a question one twentysomething actor answered by saying, “I wasn't born yet,” per the same account.
The company also built a lasting employment tradition out of the tragedy, guaranteeing job offers to the children of fallen 9/11 employees once they reached adulthood. Dozens of those children have since joined Cantor Fitzgerald and its affiliate interdealer brokerage BGC Partners, with at least 57 having done so by 2016, according to Institutional Investor.
Legacy Now Intersects With Federal Office
Howard Lutnick has led Cantor Fitzgerald since 1996 and in 2025 became U.S. Secretary of Commerce, with control of the firm transferred to his sons. The leadership change is separate from the anniversary commemorations now underway.
