WASHINGTON (AP) — Before Bill Pelt started targeting President Donald Trump’s political opponents, he was targeting his own family.
He accused his grandfather’s widow of insider trading. He is said to have been behind a website bashing his aunt as a “fake Christian”. And he publicly accused another relative of being “fat,” a “freak” and a “swindler,” according to court records from a bitter legal battle Mr. Pulte pursued against the multibillion-dollar homebuilding giant Pulte Group, founded by his grandfather.
In other administrations, that background could preclude him from reaching the top government post. But in Trump’s Washington, millennials have unexpectedly become a major player in the spotlight and online presence. The latest indicator of his influence came this week when New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who infuriated Mr. Trump by pursuing him in court, was indicted on bank fraud charges after Mr. Prut’s long campaign.
Pruitt’s official job is as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he is tasked with the tedious but important task of ensuring the health of the mortgage market. Instead, he turned that position into a megaphone to smear Trump’s perceived political opponents. In addition to referring James to the Justice Department for investigation (which Mr. Pruitt widely publicized), he investigated Sen. Adam Schiff, Democrat of California. and lisa cookFederal Reserve Board Appointed by President Joe Biden. Both are currently under federal criminal investigation.
Mr. James, Mr. Schiff and Mr. Cook all deny wrongdoing and say the investigations against them were politically motivated.
When The Associated Press asked Pruitt for comment on this story last week, he slammed the news organization.
“The Associated Press is writing a hit piece full of falsehoods as it exposes a suspect in mortgage fraud,” Pulte, 37, wrote about X to his 3 million followers before deleting the post.
“Anyone involved in criminal activity must be held accountable. No one is above the law, and President Trump’s only retribution is the success and historic accomplishments of the American people,” the White House spokesperson said in a statement.
Prut’s family and Pulut Group company officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Rise of Pulte
Pulte’s rise to power and wealth began in the 1950s, when his namesake grandfather, William J. Pulte, founded Pulte Homes, now known as Pulte Group, near Detroit. When Bill Pulte was born in 1988, the publicly traded company was one of the largest homebuilding companies in the United States, and his grandfather was on his way to becoming a billionaire.
Pulte grew up in Florida and attended a private high school before attending Northwestern University. When he lost the student body president election in 2009, he quipped to the Daily Northwestern, “I think I can go back to running the helicopter business.” A year after graduating in 2010, he founded his eponymous investment firm.
But for most of Prut’s adult life, his identity has been closely intertwined with his family’s traditional company. It was a volatile relationship.
In 2016, Pulte and his grandfather led a corporate transformation that resulted in Pulte being appointed to the company’s board while still in his 20s.
Pulte will be very online
Prut was not shy about his plans for power. He presented himself as the head of his family and claimed to be the only true heir to his grandfather’s estate, who died in 2018, according to court records. He credited them with co-leading the company’s turnaround, which he predicted “will be studied for decades, maybe centuries.”
His bragging and online behavior were a concern to company officials, according to court records.
In 2019, Pruitt began building a huge following on Twitter by handing out money to strangers, doing things that earned him retweets from President Trump, and flattering the press.
But he soon had a bitter falling out with veterans’ charities, attracting detractors who called him a charlatan. According to an internal memo prepared in the lawsuit, company officials asked Mr. Pulte to give up his Twitter handle @Pulte and correct the misconception that he was running the company. “Negative attitudes toward the company continue to coincide with Bill’s activities,” the memo said.
The controversy with veterans’ charities was one of several incidents related to Mr. Pulte’s Twitter philanthropy that brought him unwanted attention.
In 2019, Pulte offered to help a Marine veteran who was seeking help to purchase an expensive service dog for his special needs son. When Mr. Pulte did not comply, the veteran became upset and went public with his correspondence with Mr. Pulte.
Pruitt took to Twitter to accuse the veteran of revealing personal information and suggested he was part of a group of “scammers” targeting him. According to 2019 text messages reviewed by The Associated Press, a lawyer representing Mr. Pulte threatened legal action and demanded that Mr. Pulte delete his posts and stop publishing “defamatory statements.” The lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
That same year, Mr. Pulte donated $3,000 to a Twitter user, whose account soon began posting sexually explicit posts, including at least positive references to incest.
Pulte was also the victim of a scam orchestrated by a former business associate of Kanye West, the rapper now known as Yeah, the Chicago Tribune later reported. According to court records, Pulte ended up transferring $250,000 to a former associate, in part based on false promises that Ye would provide financial and public support for Pulte’s online charity work.
“I’m donating $250,000 of Kanye West’s money to Twitter Philanthropies here,” Pulte tweeted in July 2019.
Ms. Pulte got her money back, and her former Western colleague was charged with federal wire fraud, but the case was later dropped.
Pruitt’s representatives declined to provide details about the scope of his philanthropy. In 2019, Pulte tweeted that if he reached 1 million followers, he would give away $1 million on Twitter.
An archived copy of a spreadsheet that Pulte previously made available to the public shows more than $1 million in donations from his Twitter charity, including $474,000 in 2018, when he pledged to donate $1 million.
However, he regularly solicits donations from others, and it is not clear from the data how much Pulte has donated directly. Team Pulte, the nonprofit he founded for online philanthropy, also collected donations from others and gave away about $400,000, according to tax returns filed between 2020 and 2023, the most recent years available to the organization.
In response to questions from The Associated Press, Mr. Pulte’s agency described the story as a “hit piece” and claimed that “Mr. Pulte did donate $1 million on Twitter.”
The feud between Pulte and the company boils over.
By 2020, company executives were losing patience with Pulte. When the Pulte family’s stake fell to the point where they were no longer guaranteed a seat on the board, company executives moved quickly to remove the heir.
Pulte didn’t like that. Records show he sold stocks, accused his grandfather’s widow of insider trading and accused the CEO of damaging the company.
Nearly a year later, the parties appeared to have reached a détente when Mr. Pulte received a plaque and a certificate of appreciation, according to court records. It was short-lived.
A small number of anonymous Twitter accounts began trolling Pulte. Many of the posts were made in response to Mr. Pulte’s tweets, but were not widely read and were often deleted, according to court records.
“This Bill Pulte has nothing to do with Pulte Homes,” one account tweeted in 2021. “He’s trading his grandfather’s legacy as if he had anything to do with it.”
Another posted: “The Pulte family is a bit of a mess. Money will fix it.”
One of the Twitter handles was “Bill Pulte’s Ghost,” after Pulte’s late grandfather.
This flip reference infuriated Pulte.
He hired an investigative firm and filed a defamation suit against Brandon Jones, a Pulte Group executive whose promotion Pulte had previously blocked.
Mr. Jones was fired and admitted to manipulating the accounts, but he did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Pulte said he had witnessed a widespread conspiracy involving executives at Pulte Group, accusing them of taking part in a “heinous smear campaign” aimed at “stalking, harassing and defaming” him.
Although his case was against Jones, his lawyers expanded their campaign, bombarding the company and its associates with subpoenas and deposition requests. Pulte solicited “whistleblower” tips and helped fund lawsuits brought by others.
His Twitter feed was a constant stream of incident updates and complaints, including accusations that the former Pulte Group executive who trolled him was a “bitch” for the company’s CEO, and that “you can’t get away with attacking me and my grandfather! Trust me, we’ll get to the bottom of this harassment scheme and hunt down every single co-conspirator!”
The judge reprimanded Pulte and ordered him to stop posting comments that could intimidate witnesses. Still, Palt repeated the same behavior during his appearances on Fox Business Network, prompting company officials to warn the network against allowing him to air “false complaints.”
His aggressive and very public campaign against the company worried some families.
The Pulte Family Charitable Foundation issued a statement in 2023 warning that Mr. Pulte’s comments “may be speaking on behalf of the entire Pulte family.”
In fact, the charity said Mr Pulte “does not represent or speak for the entire Pulte family in any capacity”.
Ms Prut hit back, accusing her aunt, the charity’s president, of being a “fake Catholic”. He claimed that his aunt, Nancy Pulte Rickard, worked for the CEO of Pulte Group and was “close-minded and essentially penniless.” He also called for her removal in a lawsuit.
An article attacking her was published on a conservative news site. A website has appeared calling her a “fake Christian” who “misuses charity funds to defame her own family” and suggesting she has committed financial crimes.
Part Rickard did not respond to a request for comment. In a court filing, her lawyer described the attack as part of a campaign of “degrading and threatening harassment” by her nephew.
Mr. Prut’s aunt-in-law, who called him “fat,” “weird,” and “a scammer,” claimed that Mr. Prut himself was behind the site, according to legal documents he filed after he tried to oust her.
A representative for Mr. Prut would not say whether he was behind the website.
“Mr. Pulte enjoys excellent relationships with the majority of his family,” FHFA said.
Trump selects Pulte for administration
Then the attack ended abruptly. After Trump won the 2024 election, Pruitt deleted thousands of social media posts and dropped the defamation lawsuit months later.
The move coincided with a new cause: a job in the Trump administration.
Mr. Pulte, who along with his wife has donated about $1 million to Mr. Trump’s political campaigns, was confirmed by the Senate to the FHFA post in March.
Since taking office, he has spearheaded a campaign to retaliate against Trump, focusing on potential cases of mortgage fraud by Trump’s rivals, often posting in rapid succession to X. However, he declined to comment on similar actions by several members of the Trump administration. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxtona Trump ally.
After James’ indictment on Thursday, he took a victory lap at X, reposting comments from conservative commentators praising him and the case he helped build.
“If you know someone who committed mortgage fraud, please send any tips to (email protected),” Pulte posted.
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Contact AP’s global research team. (email protected) or https://www.ap.org/tips/
