Bill PPPulte's PPP PPProblem?

"The dildo doth protest too much, methinks" - Hamlet

Two years ago, I had never heard of Bill Pulte. I yearn for 2.1 years ago. It was only through casually following the demented saga of former Bed Bath and Beyond ($BBBY / $BBBYQ) bagholders that I stumbled across him.

It seems legions of baggies believed, and still believe (2 years later) that a payday is coming their way on their old BBBY shares. You can point them to the court filing that shows their equity was canceled by the bankruptcy judge in September, 2023, and they will turn purple with rage and call you a “shill” or worse.

Bankruptcy plan: https://restructuring.ra.kroll.com/bbby/Home-DocketInfo?DockRelatedSearchValue=900925-2160

I found it curious that, months after the equity was formally and irrevocably canceled by the court, Bill Pulte co-hosted some kind of oddball Baggy Fyre Festival in an airplane hanger in Florida for $500 a pop for “fans” of $BBBY(Q), $GME, and other meme stonks. The full video feed has been taken down, and Pulte has since scrubbed much of his social media that references it, but you can still find the registration page here. You can also read about the event on this detailed Reddit post.

Following the event, Pulte even bought BBBY bonds as some kind of odd way to get “justice” for shareholders.

This article isn’t about Bill Pulte’s extensive engagement with meme stock baggies. However, I find it important to point out that at the Pulte-branded December 2023 event, participants continued their relentless pursuit of justice by holding Pulte microphones and slapping each other on stage with a large green dildo while a gaggle of slack-jawed onlookers squealed with delight. You can find the clip here (including a very odd award presented to Pulte at the end…), but here are a few screenshots:

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gme_meltdown/comments/1i40i65/pp_dildo_slap_bill_pulte_fucks_only_the_young/

In what must have been a close contest between Mayor McCheese and Bill Pulte, Pulte was nominated and confirmed as the Trump administration’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. A degree in broadcast journalism and being one of William J. Pulte (founder of Pulte Homes)’s 25 grandchildren seems to have put him over the top. Nobody’s ever heard of “McCheese Homes” anyway. Sadly, the dildo slap-a-thon didn’t make its way into the confirmation hearings.

More recently, Pulte has taken on the role of attack dog in going after Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve Governor. Pulte seems to have mined the mortgage database of the agency he oversees (completely unprompted, and coincidentally at the same time President Trump is attempting to cajole the Fed into lowering interest rates) to claim that Cook committed mortgage “fraud”. Specifically, Pulte accuses Cook inappropriately claiming more than one home as a primary residence in mortgage applications. True? I dunno. If true was it deliberate or a clerical error? I dunno. Is the mere allegation “cause” for Trump to fire Cook and replace her with one of his craven boobs? I dunno but I suspect not.

In any case, I noticed this interesting tweet from Jeff Davies of Enerwrap on X, The Everything App:

I found that rather intriguing. I had thought Bill Pulte had a net worth of at least $100 million and a family office. What was he doing taking out a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) forgivable government loan in April 2020? Surely it was not the same Pulte, right? Perhaps one of his two dozen cousins? Doesn’t appear to be:

Source: https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_fl/M16000004611

Thanks to ProPublica, every PPP loan can be conveniently searched. Here is the entry for Pulte’s loan (“loan” isn’t really the best term, as it was forgiven):

Source: https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/loans/pulte-capital-partners-llc-8704867010

At this point it’s worth looking at the form of PPP loan application, a copy of which is available from the Treasury Department:

https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Paycheck-Protection-Program-Application-3-30-2020-v3.pdf

Pay particular attention to the certifications on the application:

So the loan was “necessary”? I find that a bit odd. Pulte’s financial disclosures from his government appointment (found here) show that this entity (Pulte Capital Partners, LLC) was worth over $50 million):

Of course, this was a more recent figure. Perhaps he really was in a dire situation back in 2020, and needed that $50K to meet payroll. However, thanks to the Wayback Machine we can look at the Pulte Capital Partners LLC website less than two weeks after the PPP loan was approved:

Source:https://web.archive.org/web/20200421092017/http://www.pultecapital.com/investment-criteria

In the market looking to invest $15 million to $200 million at a throw in private equity deals, the same month that “necessary” $50K in taxpayer money came in.

About a year after the loan was forgiven, Pulte told the Detroit Free Press that he was worth upwards of $100 million, personally:

Source: https://www.freep.com/in-depth/news/local/michigan/detroit/2021/12/22/bill-pulte-focuses-twitter-philanthropy-oxford-crisis-aid/6492319001/

I do find it particularly galling that, just 8 days after the PPP loan came in, The Small Business Administration’s PPP program ran out of funds:

Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/it-took-13-days-for-the-paycheck-protection-program-to-run-out-of-money-what-comes-next

For a self-proclaimed champion of the “little guy”, I wonder what restaurant or other small business had to close its doors in April 2020 so Bill Pulte could have $100,050,000 instead of $100,000,000.

I’m not alleging any particular wrongdoing here. Perhaps he really did need the money. But I’d bet 3 slaps of the green baggie dildo that he and his private equity colleagues would have been fine without it.

Something to keep in mind as he continues to go after a Federal Reserve Governor for allegedly ticking the wrong box on a mortgage application.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!