He’s called ‘Little Trump,’ and his tactics are rankling White House top brass

Bill Pulte marched into the Oval Office this summer and delivered one of his signature performances.

Pulte, who heads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, told the president he had identified leakers who were undermining the administration. He was carrying a “Ghostbusters"-style poster that featured pictures of administration officials and outside allies, outlined by red circles with lines through their faces, according to officials familiar with the meeting.

For many in the West Wing, it was classic Pulte: an attention-grabbing move to burrow into President Trump’s good graces by attacking the president’s perceived enemies.

Pulte, a 37-year-old heir to a home-building fortune, has emerged as one of the most polarizing figures inside and outside the Trump administration. Referred to by some as “Little Trump," his job is to oversee mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which back nearly half the mortgages in the country.

Pulte has routinely made waves from that low-profile post, digging up opposition research on the president’s foes, ousting legal and ethics watchdogs who investigated the FHFA director’s conduct, and lashing out at companies in the housing world. Most recently, he has championed the idea of introducing a 50-year mortgage in the U.S.—a proposal that got a cool reception in Washington, even from many on the right.

Some administration officials have grown wary of Pulte’s unorthodox and aggressive tactics and have been gathering information on what they see as his missteps and political vulnerabilities, building on the vetting they did before he got the job, people familiar with the situation said.

Those officials believe Pulte has veered outside his lane, creating headaches for the administration. They have pushed the president to replace him, but Trump has resisted, telling confidants he appreciates Pulte’s loyalty, the people said.

Like many people in the president’s orbit, Pulte enhanced his standing via a pricey membership at Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., resort Mar-a-Lago. The grandson of William J. Pulte, who had founded home-builder giant PulteGroup, the younger Pulte left the company’s board in 2020 after disagreements with other directors. He led a private-equity firm and focused on social media philanthropy, in which he would donate to his followers.

Pulte and his wife donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to pro-Trump groups in recent campaign cycles. After Trump’s 2024 election victory, Pulte was spotted dining at Mar-a-Lago with longtime Trump ally Roger Stone. Pulte also developed a relationship with the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., though he doesn’t consider himself to be a close friend of Pulte.

Days before his inauguration in January, Trump announced Pulte as his pick to lead the FHFA. “You are the greatest President in history," Pulte replied on X, thanking him.

Ethics complaint

In April, Pulte referred New York Attorney General Letitia James—a Democrat who became a prime target for Trump after she brought a civil fraud case against him in 2022—to the Justice Department for prosecution, accusing her of having falsified records to obtain favorable loan terms.

The tactics Pulte used in that case came under scrutiny inside Fannie. An internal complaint alleged that he improperly obtained mortgage records of James and other Democratic officials, The Wall Street Journal reported. The complaint made its way to FHFA acting inspector general Joe Allen, who ultimately sent it to federal prosecutors in Virginia, at least in part because it could be considered material information for James’s defense in the case, a person familiar with the matter said.

Allen was asked to step down from that role shortly thereafter, the Journal reported, and about a dozen members of the ethics and investigations units of Fannie were fired in recent weeks in the wake of complaints against Pulte. FHFA has disputed the Journal’s reporting on the matter, and Pulte has said the layoffs were part of efforts to rein in diversity, equity and inclusion programs. James has called the charges against her baseless and has pleaded not guilty.

Pulte has also taken aim at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whom Trump has sharply criticized for his handling of interest rates, and Fed governor Lisa Cook. Days after he accused her of mortgage fraud, Trump said he would remove Cook, citing the allegations. In court filings defending her job at the Fed, Cook has denied committing mortgage fraud.

Inside the White House, Pulte’s idiosyncrasies have earned him some detractors. His penchant for carrying poster boards into meetings has become so well known that when he shows up without one, administration aides ask where his boards are, according to administration officials.

Advisers for companies who have prepped executives for meetings with Pulte have warned them that the interactions could be unusual, according to people involved in such discussions. Some compared Pulte’s tendency to go off-topic in private meetings to Trump’s.

“We have great meetings with a wide variety of constituents!" an FHFA spokesman said.

Gaining favor

Pulte has continued to cultivate relationships with Trump family members and their friends. He added Omeed Malik, a former Bank of America executive who co-founded the investment firm 1789 Capital, which counts Trump Jr. as a partner, to the board of Fannie Mae.

While Pulte has gained favor with the president, he has infuriated many of Trump’s advisers. After he kept showing up at the golf course in Virginia where Trump regularly plays, White House officials sent a message to staffers on location to watch out for him and make sure he didn’t catch the president unattended.

Earlier this year, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, at a dinner at a private club backed by Trump Jr., had grown so incensed by Pulte that he threatened to punch him “in the f—ing face," according to people familiar with the incident, which Politico earlier reported. Bessent had heard that Pulte had been badmouthing him to Trump. After the blowup, Trump told Bessent and Pulte to play nice, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

Pulte’s focus on the New York attorney general has only intensified in recent months. In the dining room off the Oval Office, Pulte told Trump that Erik Siebert, then the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was blocking charges against James in his office, according to people familiar with the matter. Siebert had been under pressure to charge James but hadn’t been able to build the case, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

Pulte told Trump that Siebert had been nominated by Virginia’s two Democratic senators—Tim Kaine and Mark Warner—which angered the president, people familiar with the situation said. Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, told Trump that wasn’t true. She said the White House had picked Siebert, and the pair of Democrats agreed to support the nomination as a favor to Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Still, Trump said he didn’t want a nominee that Warner and Kaine backed, and told aides to remove him, the people familiar with the matter said. Siebert resigned after learning of plans to fire him. Many of Trump’s nominees have received Democratic support.

Trump’s new pick for the job, his former personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan, secured an indictment of James in early October. Minutes after James was indicted, Pulte came into the Oval Office to boast that he and Halligan had pulled it off on their own, the people said. “This is false," the FHFA spokesman said. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in eastern Virginia declined to comment.

The Great American Mortgage Corporation

Pulte has also caused friction over his handling of agency business. Rocket, one of the country’s largest mortgage lenders, in late March unveiled a $9.4 billion deal to buy a rival, Mr. Cooper Group. The companies didn’t anticipate issues getting it past the deal-friendly Trump administration.

But Rocket complained to the White House that Pulte, whose agency needed to sign off on the acquisition, was slow-walking the process, people familiar with the situation said.

President Trump intervened and his chief of staff, Wiles, ordered Pulte to bless the deal, the people said. A spokesman for the Federal Housing Finance Agency said that characterization of the Rocket deal’s review is false. A person close to FHFA said the agency was doing proper diligence on a significant deal.

Rocket had a separate run-in earlier with Pulte, when Pulte suggested the firm invest in 1789 Capital, some of the people said. Rocket didn’t invest. The FHFA spokesman and an attorney for Pulte disputed this, calling it “categorically false." A lawyer for 1789 and Malik said neither the firm nor Malik had any knowledge whatsoever of any such suggestion by Pulte.

Pulte has made an aggressive push for swift public offerings of Fannie and Freddie, a move Trump has said he would consider, and imagined a new entity called the “Great American Mortgage Corporation." The two mortgage giants facilitate the market by bundling loans to sell to investors with a government guarantee. They have been under government control since the 2008 financial crisis, and IPOs would be complex, high-stakes transactions.

The fast timeline has been a key flashpoint in the feud between Pulte and Bessent, who has stressed a more careful approach to avoid driving up mortgage rates.

Pulte has allowed Fannie and Freddie to ramp up purchases of mortgage-backed securities as it had done before the 2008 crisis, hoping that doing so could help boost earnings ahead of a potential IPO, according to people familiar with the matter.

After the crisis, the government had ordered Fannie and Freddie to back off that strategy. Severe problems in the subprime mortgage business triggered massive losses on those securities across Wall Street.

‘Things look unsteady’

Pulte recently summoned executives from large home builders to the Commerce Department. In the meetings, he and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told executives they were part of the problem in the home-affordability crisis, people familiar with the matter said, directing them to construct more homes on empty lots and lower prices.

The meeting struck some attendees as an unusual intervention. The FHFA doesn’t have direct regulatory authority over home builders. Builders tried to explain that higher interest rates, economic uncertainty and local regulations were a drag on housing activity. Some left with the impression that those who didn’t follow the government’s requests would be punished, the people familiar with the matter said.

FHFA is “exploring all ways to increase housing affordability," the agency spokesman said. A Commerce official said Lutnick asked home builders to come in with their best ideas on housing affordability. The official said Lutnick doesn’t believe that adding more volume to the housing market would fix affordability.

Pulte has some industry boosters, such as Mat Ishbia, CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage. In a statement to the Journal this summer, Ishbia said Pulte “thinks big and different."

Meanwhile, Pulte has remade the agency itself. He made himself chairman of the boards of Fannie and Freddie, axed directors and executives and installed new leaders, some with little to no known experience in mortgage finance.

The changes have rattled some lenders and mortgage-backed securities investors. Some stakeholders have reached out to the Treasury Department to express concerns, people familiar with the matter said.

In a statement, Pulte said mortgage-backed securities investors are “more positive than ever" about Fannie and Freddie.

Looking to reassure his members about all the changes, Mortgage Bankers Association CEO Bob Broeksmit sent them a video recently. He said that Fannie and Freddie executives had given him “assurance that things are more in control than they may appear."

“You are not alone in thinking that from the outside, things look unsteady," he said.

Write to Gina Heeb at gina.heeb@wsj.com, Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com and Rebecca Ballhaus at rebecca.ballhaus@wsj.com