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The head of Fannie Mae and Federal Mac’s federal regulator, Bill Pulte, says he’s signed more than 80 orders revamping policies and procedures at the mortgage giants — only a handful of which have been made public.

Since being sworn in as director of the Federal Housing Financing Agency on March 14, Pulte has issued a raft of orders, decisions and waivers eliminating programs and practices intended to boost lending in minority communities, protect borrowers from unfair or deceptive practices, and assess risks associated with climate change.

The orders that have been made public are available only as pictures of the documents Pulte has published on his social media profile on X, often without comment. To date, Pulte has posted a dozen documents — including six orders, five decisions, and a waiver — implementing what in many cases are major policy changes at FHFA.

In an April 30 appearance on a business program on X, “From the Desk of Anthony Pompliano,” Pulte claimed he’s signed six or seven times that number of orders — he was not sure exactly how many.

“I’ve signed over 80 orders, or something like that,” Pulte told Pompliano. “I thought last I saw for sure was over 50, but somebody told me yesterday it’s now over 80. I don’t have an exact count, but that’s crazy to think about that. As a director of just federal housing, that you would have that many things that you could just — boom, boom, boom, get done.”

The FHFA, which has made no formal announcements of Pulte’s orders and has not made them available to the public, published 13 orders on its website during Trump’s first administration and 11 during the Biden administration.

Asked for copies of the additional orders Pulte says he’s signed, the FHFA provided the following statement: “U.S. Federal Housing FHFA is prioritizing efficiencies that eliminate wasteful and unnecessary red tape. We are laser-focused on finding smart solutions that make the American Dream a reality for Americans everywhere.”

Pulte, the grandson of PulteGroup Inc. founder William J. Pulte, angered some prominent Democrats by firing 14 members of Fannie and Freddie’s boards of directors and appointing himself the chair of both companies less than a week after he was confirmed.

Ten Democrats including Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand asked FHFA Inspector General Brian Tomney on April 15 to determine if the agency had complied with the law in gutting Fannie and Freddie’s boards, and to assess whether plans to downsize FHFA would compromise its ability to “fulfill its statutorily mandated functions.”

The next day, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Jack Reed and Lisa Blunt Rochester urged Tomney to “open an investigation into FHFA’s apparent noncompliance with federal laws and regulations,” claiming Pulte is prohibited by law from holding any position at Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

“Within a week of taking office, he removed a majority of the directors of Fannie and Freddie, installing himself, his business associates, and partisan loyalists in their place,” the April 16 letter to Tomney claimed. “He also removed Fannie’s entire audit committee. After these actions, the boards appear to lack anyone from an organization that has represented consumer or community interests, or has shown a career commitment to low-income housing.”

The FHFA’s recent appointments to Fannie Mae’s board include Mike Stucky — a former Pulte Group division president — and banker, investor and lawyer Omeed Malik. As chairman and CEO of Colombier Acquisition Corp., Malik is leading a plan to take GrabAGun, an online retailer of firearms and ammunition, public in a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger.

Donald Trump Jr. — a partner in Malik’s venture capital firm 1789 Capital — will serve on GrabAGun’s board of directors, and Pulte announced in January that his family is an investor in the company.

Tomney declined both requests from lawmakers in separate letters on April 24, saying the FHFA was responding to those inquiries and committed to “continuing dialogue.”

“FHFA is best positioned to respond to your questions regarding the factual and legal basis for staffing decisions at FHFA and the changes made on the boards of the enterprises [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac],” Tomney wrote in a response to the April 15 letter from Schumer, Booker, Gillibrand and other Democrats.

Both of Tomney’s letters to lawmakers were obtained by Politico.

Reading the tea leaves

Much of what’s known about the FHFA’s administration of Fannie and Freddie during the second Trump administration comes from Pulte’s posts on X, and media appearances on Fox News and other news outlets.

In the last week, Pulte has posted about meetings he’s had with top lending industry executives at loanDepot, Rithm Capital, Newrez and Annaly Capital.

On April 21, he posted, “We do not foresee any more executive leadership changes at Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac. Our focus will now turn to growth, making homes more affordable, rooting out mortgage fraud, & providing great career opportunity to those who make Fannie & Freddie great American Icons, again!”

In an April 9 appearance on Fox News, Pulte said there is an “ongoing investigation” into the issues that led to the firing of more than 100 Fannie Mae employees. He said FHFA discovered “multiple people were working two jobs” — including some who were located in China — and that some employees had received kickbacks for charitable donations.

In an 18-minute interview on “From the Desk of Anthony Pompliano” Wednesday, Pulte said the Trump administration is focused on bringing home prices down through deregulation.

“They had all these — you had to make sure all these buildings were green,” Pulte said. “I mean, why is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dictating that? If they have an issue with that, go through Congress. Some of these programs, in my opinion, were social engineering.”

Although Fannie and Freddie have promoted the construction of energy efficient homes through “green bonds” and other financing mechanisms, it’s not clear what building requirements Pulte was referring to.

Among the orders Pulte has made public so far, one rescinded a directive that Fannie and Freddie each assess the risks that climate-driven events like floods, fires and storms could pose to their finances. Another rescinded a directive that Fannie and Freddie participate in a solar energy working group for multifamily properties. The mortgage giants have also been told to abandon a directive to expand borrower education on energy efficiency metrics.

Pulte also told Pompliano mortgage fraud “is a big problem” and that eliminating it will be “a very big hallmark of FHFA as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” in the years ahead.

Income verification has improved since 2008, “when people were saying all kinds of things to get mortgages,” Pulte said. But he claimed there has been an “uptick” in occupancy fraud — including cases where people claim a home is their primary residence, when it is not — “at least from anecdotal stuff that we’ve been looking at in terms of tips that are coming in.”

Pulte allegedly sent a criminal referral letter to the U.S. Department of Justice on April 14 suggesting that New York Attorney General Letitia James may have falsified records on two properties she owns to receive better mortgage loan terms, The New York Times reported last month.

James — who won a $486 million civil fraud judgment against Trump that is under appeal — has denied the allegations (a spokesman told the Times “She will not be intimidated by bullies”), and the FHFA has declined to comment.

No hurry to privatize Fannie and Freddie

Pompliano — described by Bloomberg News as “a cryptocurrency influencer, podcaster and investor” — is CEO of PropCap Acquisition Corp., a blank-check special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that plans to raise $200 million in an initial public offering.

He’s a fan of the Trump administration’s plan to create a U.S. sovereign wealth fund, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said could help the Trump administration privatize Fannie and Freddie.

The government’s stakes in Fannie and Freddie, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates are worth about $270 billion, are among the government assets that could conceivably be placed in a sovereign wealth fund, Bessent said in March.

Pulte is a crypto fan himself — in addition to millions of dollars in annual dividends from his stakes in Pulte Group and several heating and air conditioning companies, he listed $500,000 to $1 million in bitcoin among the assets he disclosed in a financial disclosure statement for executive branch personnel.

But asked about the timetable for privatizing Fannie and Freddie, Pulte echoed past comments by Bessent that the Trump administration is in no hurry.

“I think conservatorship shouldn’t be for forever,” Pulte told Pompliano. “I think that if it’s to be done, it needs to be done extremely thoughtfully and carefully” so that it dosen’t affect the mortgage market.

In the meantime, Pulte said he didn’t want “to give a specific number” about how many jobs may be eliminated at Fannie and Freddie — the companies employed 16,276 workers as of Jan. 31.

“We have 16,000 people at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and most, if not all, were working from home,” before he took over, Pulte complained. But “we’re hoping to see that people will elevate and lift themselves up and start to get productive and come up with ideas to cut costs,” he said.

“We’ve taken out with DOGE [the Department of Government Efficiency] and with ourselves, millions of dollars worth of cost,” Pulte said, without providing specifics.

“Where I made most of my money my career has been buying businesses, growing them, and specifically elevating great talent,” Pulte said. “That’s what we’ve done at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We have found some great people inside of these organizations [and] people who aren’t necessarily aligned to us are no longer there for whatever reasons.”

Industry watches X for orders

Programs and policies governing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank System — the government-sponsored enterprises, or “GSEs,” — have evolved over many years, with industry input.

In issuing orders, decisions and waivers eliminating policies that it’s opposed to, the Trump administration outlines the justifications for doing so in the orders themselves — but only after the fact, leaving affected lenders, homebuyers, and real estate agents to sort out the implications.

Pulte’s claim to have signed dozens of orders that have yet to be made public suggests there will be more sorting to do — and potential confusion.

Summarizing some of the orders published by Pulte on X in March, a policy analyst at the National Association of Realtors noted that rescinding guidance to the GSEs on how to identify and assess climate risk could have financial implications.

“The GSEs act as insurers and often absorb losses due to natural disasters if the homeowner does not have adequate forms of insurance,” NAR senior policy representative Matthew Emery wrote. “Insurance programs are increasingly incapable of covering losses, and this change may mean the GSEs will have to absorb greater losses or require further funds or bailouts from the federal government.”

Emery also noted that Pulte had to clarify in a media interview that the FHFA does not intend to reduce Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s conforming loan limits, following claims by a well-connected industry veteran that the Trump administration was considering doing just that (the FHFA did not respond to Inman’s request for comment at the time).

“The recent changes appear to be steps to remove policies that were in line with President Biden’s housing policy agenda and seem less geared toward a departure from conservatorship, nor do they create notable cost savings,” Emery wrote in March.

In doing away with a requirement that Fannie and Freddie adopt Equitable Housing Finance Plans every three years and publish annual reports documenting their performance, the FHFA risks going back to a time when minority communities were underserved, National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) Executive Vice President Nikitra Bailey told Inman in March.

“Before the Equitable Housing Finance Plans were created, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were doing a horrible job of serving the entirety of the market in an equitable way,” Bailey said at the time. “The housing equity plans were designed to help them meet their charter statutory obligations to ensure there is mortgage credit liquidity in every market at all times. So, the idea that you would take those away means that we might revert back to a time when their book of business for programs for black and Latino consumers was very low.”

FHFA orders made public by Pulte

  • Order Nos. 2025-OR_FNMA-13 2025-OR-FHLMC-13 Order Rescinding Directive on Multifamily Lease Policies (March 24)
  • Order No. 2025-OR-B-2 Order Rescinding Advisory Bulletin 2024-06: Regulated Entity Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices Compliance (March 24)
  • Order Nos. 2025-OR-FNMA-4 2025_OR_FHLMC-4 Order Rescinding Advisory Bulletin 2024-01: Climate Related Risk Management (March 25)
  • Decision No. 2025-144 Order Issuing Directive Terminating “Repair All” REO Strategy (March 25)
  • Decision No. 2025-145 Order Issuing Directive to Terminate Special Credit Purpose Programs (March 25)
  • 2025-W-4 Regulatory Waiver of Enterprise Equitable Housing Finance Planning Requirements (March 25)
  • Decision No. 2025-150 Order Issuing a Directive Closing Directive on Standardization of Enterprise Radon Policies (March 25)
  • Decision No. 2025-152 Order Issuing Directive Closing Directive Single Family Borrower Education on Energy Efficiency (March 26)
  • Order No. 2025-OR-B-3 Order Rescinding Advisory Bulletin 2024-04: Federal Home Loan Bank System Climate-Related Risk Management (March 27)
  • Decision No. 2025-158 Order Issuing Directive Closing Directive Solar Energy for Multifamily Properties (March 28)
  • Order No. 2025-OR-B-5 Order Rescinding Advisory Bulletins: AB 2020-02 Board Diversity and AB 2021-01 Board Diversity Data Collection (Federal Home Loan Banks and Office of Finance) (April 4)
  • Order No. 2025-OR-B-7 Order Rescinding Advisory Bulletin 2024-08: FHFA Diversity and Inclusion Examination Rating System (April 4)

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include details about recent additions to Fannie Mae’s board of directors, Pulte’s referral of New York Attorney General Letitia James to the Department of Justice alleging suspected mortgage fraud, and a comment from the FHFA in declining to provide orders that Pulte has signed but not made public.

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