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The Federal Housing Finance Authority oversees roughly $7.7 trillion — with a T — in mortgage loans belonging to homeowners across the county. It’s in charge of regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government entities that form the backbone of the U.S. mortgage market — entities that have been under conservatorship since the 2008 housing crisis, but which some figures in Donald Trump’s orbit have publicly advocated for privatizing.
It’s an agency with enormous responsibility. (The housing market, after all, makes up roughly 15 percent of the U.S. economy.) To lead it, Trump has nominated a meme stock-promoting, MrBeast-investing private equity executive and podcast host.
Bill Pulte is the grandson of William Pulte, the founder of PulteHomes, the third largest homebuilder in the country today. He started his own private equity firm, Pulte Capital Investments, which focused on buying and selling air conditioning companies. More recently, Pulte has made a reputation as a figure in the “meme stock” world.
So-called meme stocks are investments that, while not necessarily appealing to conventional market analysts, generate excitement in online communities of retail investors, who try to pump the value of the company’s shares through cycles of viral hype. Supporters of a given meme stock often attach non-economic value to the brand and see themselves as underdogs against large financial firms. Most famously, in 2021, traders led a short squeeze against hedge funds that had bet against the beleaguered retailer GameStop by stirring up nostalgia for the stores and spamming memes across social media, arguing that the business was undervalued. Like many other stocks of this kind, GameStop has shed significant value since the height of speculative frenzy around it, and its fluctuations can be volatile — as with meme coins, a dubious type of cryptocurrency whose value is driven by similar dynamics.
Pulte, whose financial disclosures show he still owns stock in GameStop, also appeared on podcasts that promoted Bed Bath and Beyond. (A representative for Pulte emailed Rolling Stone after publication to clarify that Pulte himself “has never told anyone privately or publicly to buy the stock.”) BBBY stock gained an unlikely following among meme stock enthusiasts, when Gamestop CEO Ryan Cohen purchased shares in the ailing company in 2022. In the summer of 2023, months after Bed Bath and Beyond filed for bankruptcy, Pulte reportedly said he was “captivated by the people and motives of the incredible BBBY community.”
The $BBBY frenzy didn’t end well: Bed Bath and Beyond’s stock was delisted, and a lot of unsophisticated investors lost money. One thread on the subreddit WallStreetBets —”I Lost over 100k to Bed Bath And Beyond” —attracted at least 1,800 comments, with a number of people sharing their own losses.
According to The Street, Pulte has “engaged with retail investors through his X account,” but, looking at his account today, it’s hard to know what exactly was said: the social analytics site Social Blade indicates Pulte deleted some 24,756 tweets in November. (His current X bio describes Pulte as the “Inventor of Twitter Philanthropy,” referring to his practice of giving money directly to needy individuals who tweeted at him. By Pulte’s own accounting, he has disbursed more than $1.6 million this way.)
Last year, Pulte announced that his family had acquired Bed Bath and Beyond bonds with the apparent goal of recouping some money investors who lost it. At the time, Pulte tweeted that, “Overpaid executives, short sellers, and other key figures contributing to the perceived corruption of Wall Street will have to answer to retail shareholders, and the Pulte family is committed to doing everything it can to ensure answers.” (The tweet has since been deleted.)
PPSeeds, a YouTuber with whom Pulte has collaborated on multiple occasions and who is also said to have promoted BBBY, held a event during which Pulte was given an award that says “Bill Pulte Fucks” on one side and “Only the Young” on the other. (“Only the Young” appears to be Pulte’s catchphrase. Screenshots viewed by Rolling Stone indicate he tweeted it a number of times. It’s unclear what the phrase means. Rolling Stone emailed Pulte seeking comment for this story, including clarification about the catchphrase. Pulte did not respond to the inquiry.)
During an appearance on Fox Business last year, Pulte was questioned about whether he accepts any responsibility for encouraging novice traders to buy a “problematic” stock like Bed Bath and Beyond. “You might be getting people into a stock that’s going to crash more,” host Charlie Gasparino pointed out.
Pulte responded, railing against “overpaid executives,” who cashed out while “retail investors” got screwed. “This is a movement,” Pulte said of memestockers. “You can’t read this on a balance sheet, you can’t read this on a financial statement: People are pissed … They’re pissed at these executives who pocket all this money and then drive these companies into the ground … This is not fair to the average American.”
That point of view would presumably ingratiate Pulte with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, which will consider Pulte’s nomination. But Warren has raised sharp questions both about whether Pulte would support reprivatization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — “a significant undertaking that raises a number of complex questions for the housing finance system,” in her words — and whether his appointment to lead the agency would represent a conflict of interest.
“Holdings through your investment fund, Pulte Capital Partners, as well as your other investments in PulteGroup and through the Pulte Family Office, are closely tied to the housing system and may directly relate to business that will come before FHFA,” Warren wrote in a letter to Pulte, ahead of his confirmation hearings on Thursday.
In addition to his investment in GameStop, Pulte’s financial disclosures show that he is also an investor in MrBeast Industries, a company that includes MrBeast LLC, MrBeast Burger, and Feastables.
Update, 6:06 p.m:A representative for Bill Pulte reached Rolling Stone shortly after publication to say that Pulte has appeared on podcasts that promoted $BBBY, but “never told anyone privately or publicly to buy the stock.”
