The Trump administration’s loudest attack dog of late holds an unlikely position: director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The FHFA’s 37-year old director, Bill Pulte, has been pounding the drums to get Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell fired. He’s publicly pressured Powell on social media, he gave Trump a draft letter that would have ordered Powell’s firing, and he’s tried to establish a pretext Trump could use to fire Powell.

But Pulte has also played a broader role in Trump’s retribution campaign. He’s used his position to try and get two of Trump’s Democratic enemies — Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and New York Attorney General Letitia James — prosecuted for mortgage fraud.

Some of his allies hope this is just the start, and that even bigger things lie in Pulte’s future. “Bill Pulte would be an exceptional pick to run the Federal Reserve,” venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya posted on X last week.

“Attack dog” is an unusual role for the director of the FHFA, who is charged with overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the government-backed companies crucial to the functioning of US mortgage markets. (Vox requested comment from Pulte through the FHFA for this story, but received no response.)

But it’s a good fit for Pulte. The grandson of the founder of a major home-building company, Pulte has demonstrated a remarkable knack for getting attention and building his public profile. He has 3 million followers on X, and his posts there have started to move markets, according to Bloomberg.

Pulte has his enemies in the administration; the Wall Street Journal recently reported his anti-Powell campaign has “irritated” some senior officials.

One person is quite happy with him, though. After that Journal story was published, Trump posted that Pulte was doing an “outstanding job,” and added: “KEEP MOVING FORWARD, WILLIAM, DON’T LET THE RADICAL LEFT WEAKLINGS STOP YOU!”

Who is Bill Pulte, and how did he get millions of social media followers?

Housing is the Pulte family business. Pulte’s grandfather, also named Bill, founded what eventually became one of the largest home-building companies in the US, PulteGroup. The younger Bill was barely done with college when, in 2011, he founded a Michigan-based private equity fund focused on the housing industry. The board included such local luminaries such as Rick DeVos (son of future Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos) and Scott Romney (brother of Mitt Romney).

Grandpa Pulte died in 2018. The following year, then-31-year-old Bill got his first taste of national fame by going viral for giving people money. Pulte gave or offered to give sometimes hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands or even tens of thousands, and he posted on Twitter about it. He called this “Twitter Philanthropy.” (He insisted he was

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