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After the Bitcoin event in Nashville,
Trump brought Lutnick on board his plane, Trump Force One,
to a campaign stop in Minnesota, where Lutnick introduced Vance.

Lutnick later told an interviewer that travelling to a rally with the former President was
like “going to a rock concert with Mick Jagger.”

During the trip, Lutnick said, Trump offered him a formal role as co-chair of his Presidential transition team.

The decision was announced a few weeks later,
after the fund-raiser at Lutnick’s Bridgehampton home.

Another co-chair is #Linda #McMahon,
the former head of the Small Business Administration in the Trump Administration.

She, too, is a wealthy donor who, according to federal records, has given more than $10 million to support Trump in 2024.

That same month, Trump announced that he and his sons
Don, Jr., and Eric
were getting into the crypto business themselves.

#Steve #Witkoff, a New York real-estate mogul and a major Trump donor,
who testified on Trump’s behalf during his civil fraud trial this year,
helped set up the venture,
called "World Liberty Financial".

One of the entrepreneurs brought in as a partner,
#Chase #Herro, was later revealed to have referred to himself as
“the dirtbag of the Internet.”

Trump, during a rambling two-hour live-stream rollout on X,
struggled to describe how exactly the new business would work,
or even when it would launch.

“Crypto is one of those things we have to do,” he said.

“Whether we like it or not.”

By then, Lutnick’s sphere of influence had moved well beyond bitcoin.

In October, he told the Financial Times that appointees in a second Trump Administration would be subject to a strict
❌“loyalty” test
to avoid the kinds of senior aides who sought to constrain Trump during his first term.

“Those people were not pure to his vision,” Lutnick said.

“We’re going to give people the role based on their capacity
—and their fidelity and loyalty to the policy, as well as to the man.”