‘Doesn’t seem qualified’: Who is Bill Pulte, acting US intelligence chief?

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have questioned the credentials of President Trump’s latest appointee.

United States President Donald Trump has appointed businessman and federal housing regulator Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence (DNI).

Trump made Tuesday’s surprise announcement on social media that Pulte would replace Tulsi Gabbard, the former Hawaii congresswoman who has served as the director of national intelligence until recently.

Trump said Pulte will keep his other positions in addition to taking over from Gabbard, who resigned last month after revealing her husband’s cancer diagnosis.

Pulte, 38, a graduate of Northwestern University, has been director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) since March 2025.

He is heir to his family’s residential development firm – one of the US’s largest homebuilders, PulteGroup, which was founded by his grandfather in the 1950s. He previously founded a private equity firm, Pulte Capital, and is involved in large-scale philanthropic activity.

Pulte is seen as a loyal Trump supporter and has encouraged prosecutions of the president’s perceived political enemies, accusing New York Attorney General Letitia James and California’s US Senator Adam Schiff, both Democrats, and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, of mortgage fraud.

A federal grand jury refused to indict James in a Justice Department prosecution in December 2025 after Pulte wrote a criminal referral to the Justice Department, accusing her of listing a home she owned in Virginia as her primary residence to secure more favourable loan terms. Officials have also not brought charges against Schiff, who denies the allegations against him.

Trump attempted to fire Cook – an unprecedented move by a president against a US central bank official – over Pulte’s unsubstantiated accusations, but courts allowed her to remain in the role. She, too, denied the allegations. The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming weeks in her case.

In response to Pulte’s actions, Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer called the newly appointed director of national intelligence a “partisan thug” on Tuesday.

“A guy who can file such baseless, political and outrageous charges against political office holders he doesn’t like can’t be entrusted to protect our national security,” Schumer said.

Pulte’s views on whether the 2020 election was rigged against Trump – a claim many of his appointees have backed despite a lack of any evidence – are not immediately clear. He is understood to hav