Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admitted under oath that he had only sold one of President Donald Trump’s “Gold Card” visas for $1 million — after he earlier claimed to have sold 1,000 of them on a podcast last year.
The president signed an executive order creating the Gold Card program on September 19, 2025.
It officially launched in December of that year as a fast-track pathway for wealthy individuals who could “gift” their way to U.S. residency by contributing $1 million.
Lutnick openly admitted to The Financial Times that he couldn’t stop promoting the investor visa to foreign dignitaries and business leaders around the world — even before the visa program officially launched.
In March 2025, Lutnick told the All-In Podcast that he had already sold 1,000 “Gold Card” visas at $5 million each.
However, when under oath on Thursday to testify before the House Appropriations Subcommittee about the 2027 Commerce Department budget proposal, Lutnick gave a different number when asked how many applications and gifts had been approved so far.
“The process was recently completed with DHS, which runs the program, and they do a $15,000-level vetting and analysis of any potential applicant — the most serious in government history — usually it’s $600, these people pay $15,000 for an extraordinary vet,” he said.
“So they have approved just one person, and there are hundreds in the queue going through the process.”
In an apparent effort to justify the number, he emphasized the program’s newness.
“This is a new program, and they just set it up, and they wanted to make sure they did it perfectly, and so we worked through that,” he said.
“But it’s a DHS program done with a rigorous, rigorous vet.”
When asked about how the department will spend the “billions of dollars in the gift account,” Lutnick said the Trump administration will make that decision with the terms being “for the betterment of the United States of America” and for Commerce.
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