Senior Republican officials reportedly called Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week after a crypto super PAC seeded by his former firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, signaled in a federal filing that it planned to spend $1.75 million backing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
GOP leaders were apparently alarmed by the move because Fellowship PAC had inserted itself into the contentious Texas Republican runoff between Paxton and Sen. John Cornyn, a race President Donald Trump has notably avoided settling, Axios reported.
Before joining the Trump administration, Lutnick ran Cantor Fitzgerald, though he divested his interests last year and his sons now run the firm. Lutnick now serves as U.S. commerce secretary after winning Senate confirmation last year.
The outlet reported that Republican officials still reached out to Lutnick because they viewed the PAC’s planned Texas spend as a needless political mistake.
It’s unclear whether Lutnick acted on those calls. However, the planned spend appears not to have materialized.
Axios reported that Fellowship PAC never placed the ad buy listed in the FEC filing and that, by Wednesday, Republican leaders had been reassured the group had not aired and was not preparing to air pro-Paxton ads.
The report added that media-tracking data showed neither Fellowship PAC nor its ad firm had run political ads this cycle.
Such a reversal matters because the crypto angle here is not incidental. The Block reported on April 15 that Cantor Fitzgerald, once run by Lutnick, had donated $10 million to Fellowship PAC, the new crypto-aligned super PAC led by Jesse Spiro, Tether’s head of government affairs. That donation immediately made the group one of the more closely watched new vehicles in crypto politics.
Fellowship PAC had reportedly aimed to raise $100 million for the 2026 cycle and had brought in $11 million by mid-April, including the $10 million from Cantor Fitzgerald and another $1 million from Anchor Labs, a crypto infrastructure firm that works with Cantor.
As the United States approaches its first midterm election cycle under a pro-crypto administration, focus is understandably heavy on political PACs and the names they back.
There’s also increased attention on crypto regulation in Washington. This week, a coalition of over 100 crypto companies and lobbying groups urged Congress to advance progress on a key crypto market structure bill.
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