Bill Pulte, the new director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, fired Freddie Mac’s CEO Thursday.
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Diana Reid, who took over at Freddie Mac in September, was replaced by Mike Hutchins, previously the agency’s president, who will take the helm on an interim basis, according to Bloomberg, which cited a person familiar with the matter.
Reid was one of several executives in human relations and operations roles at Freddie Mac and the FHFA to be fired in the staffing shake-up, according to The Washington Post, which first reported her ouster Thursday night, citing unnamed people close to the company.
The firings come a few days after Pulte replaced several board members at both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the federally backed secondary mortgage market makers underlying America’s housing market.
Pulte and the now-departed Reid both signed a memo to staff this week directing them to return to the office five days a week within the next 45 days.
Freddie Mac didn’t respond to Bisnow’s multiple requests for comment. FHFA declined to comment. Reid’s LinkedIn profile has been updated to show that she served as CEO until this month.
This is the second time Hutchins, who joined Freddie Mac in 2013, has been tapped to lead the agency on a temporary basis. He was promoted to president in 2020 and acted as interim CEO last March to replace departing CEO Michael DeVito.
Pulte, a member of the family behind homebuilder PulteGroup, was confirmed by the Senate to lead the FHFA on March 12. Two days later, he posted on social media that he “had good conversations with the Fannie Mae CEO and Freddie Mac CEO, and I look forward to working with them!”
Pulte’s most recent original post to X was on Sunday, when he said he spent the weekend working with “some great leaders” at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“There are some really great people inside of these businesses, and the good news for them is there is a lot of upward mobility, to earn and grow MORE!” he wrote.
On Monday, Pulte appointed himself chairman of the board at both of the government-sponsored enterprises, which have effectively been under government oversight since the 2008 financial crisis. Politico called the move “highly unusual.”
At the same time, eight Fannie Mae board members left the agency and were replaced by four new members, according to regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At Freddie Mac, three new board members along with Pulte were selected to replace six departing appointees.
One of the new Fannie Mae board members was Christopher Stanley, a cybersecurity engineer at SpaceX and X, two companies owned by billionaire Elon Musk. Stanley resigned the following day without providing a reason.
Pulte was nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the FHFA as there are growing calls, including from Trump’s allies, to end the oversight of the GSEs.
Before leaving office, President Joe Biden directed the Treasury Department to begin the process of unwinding the oversight, known as conservatorship, which was also a key facet of Pulte’s confirmation hearings.
After securing the top FHFA spot, Pulte told CNN that “Fannie and Freddie shouldn’t be in conservatorship forever,” but he said the process of ending oversight should be focused on maintaining the security and stability of the mortgage market.
UPDATE, MARCH 21, 11:15 A.M. ET: This story has been updated to reflect that Mike Hutchins was named interim CEO.
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