David Crowley won the governor’s office by focusing on the cost of living until it was his only message. Eight days after Election Day, he named the people who will staff the government meant to deliver on that promise. Two of those names show how much the speech was worth.
One is Alex Lasry, son of billionaire hedge-fund manager Marc Lasry, whose fortune Forbes values at $2.2 billion. The other is Alec Knutson, Crowley’s former Milwaukee County lobbyist, who spent over a year as chief advocacy officer and registered lobbyist for Ascension Wisconsin. This hospital system was on record this session against hospital price-transparency bills.
Crowley announced both men Wednesday as co-chairs of his transition committee, in a release promising an administration focused on “making life more affordable for working families.”
In his victory speech, Crowley talked about growing up in a family that wondered “if the next doctor’s bill would wipe us out.” He told Wisconsin Public Radio in October that “we have to tackle the affordability crisis, whether we’re talking at the gas pump, groceries, housing, childcare, healthcare, you name it,” and suggested taxes on “billionaires” and “billionaire companies.” After the election, he said the affordability crisis and health care were “at the top of those lists.”
Then he put a billionaire’s nepo-baby on the team.
Lasry is a former Milwaukee Bucks senior vice president whose career has always had a famous last name attached. In 2025, he took the job running the FIFA World Cup host committee in New York and New Jersey. FOX6 reported in May that he relocated his family to New York City for it. Crowley’s release still listed him among the “Wisconsinites” on the transition. New York City property records show that in December 2025 he bought an Upper West Side penthouse for $20.65 million, a sale The Real Deal and Crain’s New York Business reported at about $21 million.
It fits a pattern. In 2021, while Lasry was running for U.S. Senate, the Associated Press reported he had collected nearly $24,000 in primary-residence property tax breaks in New York and Wisconsin at the same time. His spokesman then was Thad Nation, who blamed the New York condo management and said Lasry wanted to repay the city. Nation is now Crowley’s transition director.
Knutson is the other tell. He moved from Crowley’s Milwaukee County government-affairs shop to Ascension Wisconsin in August 2025. State lobbying records show Ascension authorized him on August 20, 2025, and withdrew that authorization on November 6, 2026, three days after Crowley won and five days before Crowley named him co-chair. Crowley’s release still identifies him as Ascension’s chief advocacy officer.
This session, Ascension Wisconsin registered against Assembly Bill 353 and Senate Bill 383, the hospital price-transparency and patient debt-collection bills led in the Senate by Sen. Julian Bradley. Those bills would have required hospitals to post clear prices and limited certain debt-collection actions against patients. Spectrum News reported in February that Ascension was among the hospital systems opposed to the Senate bill, which passed committee, then stalled and died in March. Knutson was the system’s chief advocate and a licensed lobbyist while Ascension was on record against them.
Crowley can explain why a hospital lobbyist and hedge fund nepo-baby belongs on a transition team built around affordability. Crowley told voters the next doctor’s bill might wipe them out. Then he put a hospital lobbyist and a billionaire’s kid on the team that’s supposed to fix it. If this is what he means by making life more affordable for working families, he’s woefully out of touch.
