President Donald Trump‘s top appointee overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is making major changes at the government-backed mortgage giants, including firing top officials.
Bill Pulte, Trump’s newly confirmed director of the Federal Housing Finance Administration, reportedly fired Freddie Mac CEO Diana Reid on Thursday, amid sweeping staffing overhauls at FHFA and the mortgage buyers it oversees.
Pulte also sacked Freddie Mac’s head of human resources, Dionne Wallace Oakley, and other senior executives, according to Semafor, which first reported the firings.
The shake-up follows Pulte’s abrupt move to overhaul the boards of Fannie and Freddie earlier this week, and comes amid growing speculation that Trump will move forward with privatizing the two mortgage giants, which have been under government conservatorship since the 2008 financial crisis.
Reid could not be reached for comment, but she publicly confirmed her separation from Freddie Mac on LinkedIn, where she listed her tenure as CEO there as ending in March 2025. She had led Freddie only since September and previously worked as an executive at PNC.
(Wikipedia;Freddie Mac)
Oakley and a spokesperson for Freddie Mac did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Realtor.com®.
Along with turnover at the top of Fannie and Freddie, Pulte has also initiated dramatic staffing cuts at FHFA, the regulatory agency that oversees the two mortgage giants.
On Wednesday, FHFA leaders placed a significant share of the roughly 60 employees from its research and statistics division on leave, informing them of the move in the cafeteria and then escorting them out of the building, according to Government Executive.
Gray Kimbrough, an FHFA economist, wrote in a post on X that dozens of his colleagues “have been informed that they have five minutes to pack up before being escorted out of the building.”
He wrote that the deep personnel cuts at the agency “are being carried out in the most heartless way possible.” Kimbrough said that while he still had his job at FHFA and had not been placed on leave, he had already packed up personal items from his office preemptively.
A spokesperson for FHFA declined to comment.
What do shake-ups mean for homebuyers and mortgage holders?
The staffing cuts at FHFA, Fannie, and Freddie mirror steep layoffs across the executive branch of the federal government, which Trump’s close ally Elon Musk has overseen as part of his DOGE push to cut government spending.
The firings didn’t initiate any immediate changes at Fannie and Freddie, which have been under government conservatorship for years. Still, they could signal big changes to come if Trump moves forward with privatizing the two entities.
Trump tried unsuccessfully to privatize Fannie and Freddie during his first White House term, and in recent weeks, some of his top allies have called on him to renew the push in his second term.
Billionaire investor and Trump supporter Bill Ackman, who owns shares of Fannie and Freddie, has led the charge, clamoring on social media for Trump to oversee their swift exit from government conservatorship.
Privatization would be a major milestone for Fannie and Freddie, which were created by Congress to bring liquidity to the secondary mortgage market, ensuring a ready supply of loans for homebuyers.
Threatened with collapse in the 2008 financial crisis, the two entities were bailed out with taxpayer funds in return for preferred shares held by the Treasury, which have paid out more than $300 billion in dividends over the years, surpassing the government’s outlays for the bailout to date.
Privatization would be a boon for private shareholders of Fannie and Freddie, and could possibly benefit taxpayers by freeing up resources at the regulators that oversee the two entities.
For homebuyers, the benefits of privatization are less clear, and housing economists have warned that ending the conservatorship would put upward pressure on mortgage rates.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify that FHFA economist Gray Kimbrough retained his job there and had not been placed on administrative leave at the date of publication, but instead had preemptively cleared out his office and posted about it on X.
