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Selig has won over new MAGA power players, C-suite executives and Trump himself with an aggressive agenda built around fostering the growth of innovative industries like crypto and the prediction markets — both of which faced existential fights during former President Joe Biden’s administration. That has included new rules, product approvals and a pullback on the enforcement efforts of his Biden-era predecessors. Late last month, Trump praised Selig in a post on Truth Social — saying he is “respected by all.”
But on Capitol Hill, his lone-wolf status is coming under scrutiny. Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman of Arkansas and House Agriculture Chair GT Thompson of Pennsylvania, whose committees oversee the CFTC, have called on Trump to nominate Republican and Democratic commissioners to join Selig. And many Democrats are pushing for more commissioners as part of the negotiations over the crypto bill.
“We’ve got one guy who has clear leanings toward the industry,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a Democrat who sits on the Ag panel. “I’ve got a problem with that.”
The CFTC is able to legally operate in full with a one-person commission. But Selig has said he would welcome other commissioners. The White House plans to nominate “more America First patriots to the commission in the near future, which Chairman Selig has been supportive of,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement.
The CFTC chair, however, isn’t waiting around — something he made clear to a panel of House lawmakers earlier this year when he said the agency “cannot, for the sake of the American people, slow down on our rulemaking.”
Some Republicans praise the CFTC’s approach under Selig. Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, a GOP member of the Senate Banking Committee who has been involved in the crypto bill talks, said Selig and his team “are entirely capable of handling” the new authority.
Adding commissioners could help strengthen the agency’s rulemaking efforts — and potentially help insulate it from legal challenges, proponents of the move say. That’s because commissioners frequently negotiate over proposals and final rules, often resolving potential weak points in advance.
It also risks gumming up Selig’s ambitious plans, though.
The CFTC chair has moved quickly as a commission of one to draft new rules, green-light novel investment products and even challenge states like New York, Illinois and Arizona that are seeking to crack down on CFTC-registered prediction markets — a pro-innovation push that has earned him praise from executives.
“He’s doing God’s work,” said Chris Perkins, who leads the crypto investment firm 250 Digital Asset Management.
But Selig’s recent approval of a first-of-its-kind crypto product has prompted outrage from the exchange behemoth CME Group, whose stock was rocked after the decision. CME CEO Terry Duffy, whose company runs markets across the CFTC’s jurisdiction, said on CNBC last week, “this could be a disaster waiting to happen.”
The CFTC said it has been looking at the products — known as crypto perpetual futures, or perps — for months. Unlike traditional futures, perps, which have become a major attraction on overseas crypto exchanges, allow traders to indefinitely wager on the price of an underlying asset. “The Commission will not hinder lawful innovation,” Nethercott said in an earlier statement.
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