Bill Pulte, the man President Donald Trump has nominated to serve as director of the Federal Finance Housing Agency (FHFA), is known as a businessman and a philanthropist. If confirmed by the Senate, Pulte would lead the independent agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored agencies that are crucial to the running of the real estate market.
Pulte is an unconventional choice for running the FHFA. While he is a Trump supporter, he has no government experience. His history of philanthropy and private equity activist investing is not the typical career path for agency administrators. Some experts have even surmised that Trump tapped Pulte because he would accelerate the privatization plans for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Pulte is the founder and CEO of the private equity firm Pulte Capital Partners. He is also chair of The Pulte Family Office, which also invests in companies, and the former director of PulteGroup, Inc., the public real estate development company that was started by his grandfather, William J. Pulte, who died in 2018.
Pulte has been greatly influenced by his grandfather’s interest in philanthropy. He wrote in a guest column for the Florida Times-Union in 2021 that his grandfather, who grew up poor in Detroit during the Depression, felt a duty after becoming successful to help those less fortunate. His passion was helping “the poorest of the poor,” Pulte wrote of the real estate magnate.
That passion to give back was passed on to the elder Pulte’s children and to his grandchildren. Grandson Pulte, himself, supports a number of philanthropies and launched the Detroit Blight Authority, which works to stabilize neighborhoods in the city. He has also become a well-known “Twitter philanthropist.”
He wrote in the Times-Union column that one day it dawned on him that Twitter, now known as X, was “the perfect platform to use to reach people in need across the world.” He maintains he’s used X to give away more than $1 million as well as three cars. He writes that the amounts he’s given to individuals have varied from $50 to $25,000. “I help everyone and anyone from cancer patients to single moms, U.S. citizens and people internationally,” Pulte wrote.
Pulte has spoken publicly about how President Trump has helped him raise tens of thousands of dollars in donations on X for military veterans over the years.
Beyond his philanthropic interests, Pulte has also made a name for himself as an activist investor. In December, Pulte, as chair of The Pulte Family Office, an activist shareholder in Virtu Financial, a financial data management company, called on the business to sell itself to either a private equity firm or to another public company. If the company doesn’t explore a sale, Pulte is threatening to force a proxy vote or take other actions.
Pulte lamented the current CEO, “is not focused on building a materially bigger business and spends precious time tweeting on items not related to the core operations of the company.”
On Jan. 15, Pulte announced that The Pulte Family Office had bought shares in GrabAGun, an online firearms retailer that also sells other outdoor products. The company is about to go public through a business combination with Colombier Acquisition Corp. II.
“Much like the First Amendment, the Second Amendment must be protected, and we believe there is no better way to exercise this belief than by investing in GrabAGun,” Pulte said.