Trump appointee fires Freddie Mac CEO

Bill Pulte, heir of one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, wasted little time launching a house cleaning campaign after being confirmed as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) March 13.

On Thursday, Pulte fired Freddie Mac CEO Diana Reid, according to news reports. The government-backed mortgage financing provider’s website lists Freddie Mac President Michael Hutchins as interim CEO.

On Monday, Reid’s LinkedIn page stated she is now retired.

Hutchins previously stepped in as interim CEO following the March 2024 departure of Freddie Mac CEO Michael J. DeVito, who was succeeded in September 2024 by Reid, who led PNC Financial Service Group’s real estate business division for more than a decade.

Named Freddie Mac’s president in 2020, Hutchins began his career at the company in 2013, serving as a senior vice president and then as an executive vice president for investments and capital markets.

Last week, the FHFA overhauled the boards of both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, another government-sponsored housing finance system, according to news reports. Pulte is now chair of the boards of the two companies, even though, as Politico noted in a Thursday article, there is a federal statute stipulating that an agency director may not “hold any office, position, or employment in any regulated entity or entity-affiliated party.”

On March 17, the FHFA, according to a Freddie Mac filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, removed the following board members: Kevin Chavers, a former managing director and member of the global fixed income securitized asset investment team at BlackRock; Lance Drummond, a former executive vice at TD Canada Trust; Luke Hayden, owner of Hayden Consulting; Allan P. Merrill, chair, president and CEO of Georgia-based Beazer Homes; Jane E. Prokop, executive vice president at Mastercard; and Roy Swan, director of Mission Investments at the Ford Foundation. That day, the agency appointed to the board Brandon Hamara, vice president of California-based Tri Pointe Homes; Clinton Jones, general counsel of the FHFA, and Ralph “Cody” Kittle, a partner at RenWave Core, an investment firm with offices in Connecticut and Texas.

On March 19, the FHFA appointed an additional director to the board: David Farbman, CEO of HealthRise Solutions, a Michigan-based hospital revenue cycles business. He replaced Christopher E. Herbert, managing director for Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, who resigned that day.

Pulte also appointed to the Fannie Mae board Christopher Stanley, a SpaceX engineer and part of the Department of Government Efficiency effort, although he resigned a day later, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Real estate industry leaders speculate that the Trump administration may be moving to privatize Freddie Mac, which is based in Tysons, and Fannie Mae.

A request for comment to Freddie Mac was not immediately returned.

Pulte, who runs an operational investment firm focused on acquiring and growing building products and related service companies, is the grandson of William Pulte, who founded Pulte Homes, an American residential home construction company.

In a February statement for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Pulte said the conservatorships of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae “should not be indefinite.” However, he added that “any exit from conservatorship must be carefully planned to ensure the safety and soundness of the housing market without upward pressures on mortgage rates.”

The two companies were placed in a conservatorship by the FHFA in 2008 in the wake of the housing crash.