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Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency — the federal agency that oversees more than $7 trillion in mortgage loans — is a man named Bill Pulte. Among the matters Pulte has been pressed on as senators weigh his confirmation is the fact that roughly 24,000 tweets disappeared from his account in November 2024, according to the data analytics site Social Blade.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) sent a letter to X CEO Linda Yaccarino late last month asking for the recovery of those tweets, which, she says, are important to knowing Pulte’s “policy positions, temperament, and fitness to serve.”
X refused to turn over the tweets, saying Warren’s letter provided “no legal basis that would permit or compel X” to provide them. But Rolling Stone reviewed more than 1,000 screenshots of tweets that showed Pulte engaged in petty fights and childish name-calling on the platform. (A sample shows Pulte calling various individuals “a slob,” “foreign freak and loser,” “a total loser” and “a theater kid forever.”) The deleted tweets also show Pulte tweeting to and about GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen, moves that would eventually place Pulte in a central role in an unfolding meme stock drama.
Pulte, who could receive a confirmation vote on Thursday, originally gained a large following on the platform formerly known as Twitter because of his reputation for giving money to people who tweeted at him. (His current X bio declares Pulte “The Inventor of Twitter Philanthropy.”) In 2023, he developed an even more loyal following among a hyper-specific set of individuals: a group of Bed Bath & Beyond investors who were weaving increasingly elaborate theories that the tanking stock they purchased would somehow skyrocket — or at least recover its value — instead of becoming worthless, which is what happened when $BBBY shares extinguished in the fall of 2023, following the company’s well-publicized descent into bankruptcy.
Bed Bath & Beyond was a meme stock that went viral among social media users in the wake of a similar frenzy with GameStop — another brick-and-mortar mall fixture shorted by hedge funds. Wall Street bet on GameStop’s failure; its popularity online helped the company beat back the vultures.
Similar efforts to revive Bed Bath & Beyond were a failure. In the wake of the company’s collapse, retail investors have come forward to share stories of losing tens of thousands of dollars in $BBBY. As chronicled by the documentary The Cult of the Dead Stock, many of those investors — who gathered on Reddit and in Twitter Spaces, and tuned into a YouTube channel called The PPShow, hosted by a man named Alexander Zarac — had pinned their hopes for the stock’s prospects on Cohen, the GameStop CEO.
Cohen took a $120 million stake in $BBBY in March 2022 — more than his original investment in GameStop. In August 2022, after Cohen publicly disclosed he was betting on $BBBY to surge, the stock spiked. Cohen quickly cashed out, netting nearly $60 million. After Cohen sold, the stock cratered and ultimately crashed to less than $1 per share.
At the time, many amateur investors remained stubbornly convinced that Cohen was secretly plotting to swoop in and rescue the company from certain death. There was no evidence to support this idea, only increasingly deranged fantasies. Some desperate investors became fixated on Pulte — who, at the time, occasionally interacted with Cohen on Twitter — and, eventually, these investors became convinced that Pulte, the CEO of Pulte Capital, was a sort of oracle through whom Cohen was sending messages intended for them, the $BBBY faithful.
The tweets and videos reviewed by Rolling Stone show Pulte engaging with the $BBBY investor community after the company’s stock had already plummeted and been delisted, but during the time that it continued to be traded, as well as after shares were extinguished. (A representative for Pulte said that because the tweets have been deleted, he is unable to confirm the authenticity of the tweets reviewed by Rolling Stone. That representative added, “Mr. Pulte has already addressed these matters during his hearings and remains committed to the confirmation process and his dedication to serving the American people.”)
During that period in 2023, Pulte also appeared on livestreams alongside Zarac, the host of the PPShow. In one characteristic exchange, Pulte was asked: “What are your thoughts on Teddy and what do you think RC’s trying to do with it?” (Cohen trademarked the name “Teddy,” fueling speculation among $BBBY investors that it would be the name of a re-branded Bed Bath & Beyond. It turned out to be for Cohen’s line of children’s books.) Pulte answered: “He’s up to something. There’s something that’s caused him to behave the way he’s behaved with this situation. They’re not going to put that in an SEC filing.” At another point, Pulte was asked about his interest in the stock. He was captured in the documentary saying, “I just like the stock, I like Ryan Cohen.”
Deleted tweets reviewed by Rolling Stone also indicated, at various points, Pulte’s efforts to distance himself from the $BBBY fiasco after the fact. He replied to one longtime $BBBY investor in November 2023: “I do not know if RC [is] involved in any stock or situation. As I’ve said, you should NOT construe anything I say about any stock, GME, or BBBYQ. I have nothing to do with BBBYQ and do not own any of it. Thank you.”
Nevertheless, on Reddit, people have continued to debate the extent to which Pulte was knowingly encouraging a fantasy that $BBBY would recover its value after it was delisted. “He knows exactly what he’s doing with his constant innuendos,” one wrote. Another posted: “He has done a lot of things to make us believe he is hinting at things.” (A representative for Pulte insisted he never engaged or played into any fantasy.)
Some have speculated, in the documentary and elsewhere, that Pulte’s ultimate motivation for ingratiating himself with $BBBY investors was to harness the power of this enthusiastic and, frankly, gullible group of investors as a grassroots shareholder army of sorts with the power to influence PulteGroup, Inc.— the home building company started by his grandfather. Bill Pulte has a long and bitter history with the company’s executives.
Fueling that speculation is the fact that, at an event that Pulte held with Zarac and $BBBY investors two and half months after the stock was extinguished, attendees were offered PulteGroup shares — on the condition they hold on to them for 20 years. (The fine print on the contract included other stipulations, including one that gave an associate of Pulte’s “full authority to vote and speak on behalf of the shareholder at any and all meetings.”)
At the end of October, the month before he scrubbed his X account, Pulte posted: “Today, in an effort to DO THE RIGHT THING for people who have been wronged by Overpaid Executives, I am offering a Fund to reimburse certain people for the monies invested in $BBBY. While I can’t help everyone I want to help some most affected. Talk is cheap. It takes money…” Followed by a second tweet that read; “The First $5000 for somebody affected by BBBY Overpaid Executives will go to…”
It’s not clear, because the tweets have been deleted, how many people who lost money on $BBBY took Pulte up on the offer. At least one person replied to say they were “standing by with my shares…”
“Understood, you don’t have to take my free money,” Pulte replied.
