Mother Jones illustration; Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Bill Pulte, the embattled head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), once promoted a dubious memecoin created by a social media influencer facing fraud charges. The previously unreported episode raises additional questions about the 37-year-old construction heir, who over the past few months has lobbed allegations of mortgage fraud against President Donald Trump’s political foes, fired ethics staff who questioned his actions, and become the subject of an investigation by the Government Accountability Office. 

The memecoin at issue, $ZACK, was backed by a man who goes by the X handle @MrZackMorris, after the popular main character of the 1990s TV show Saved by the Bell. His real name is Edward Constantinescu, and along with seven other defendants, he was accused in 2022 by the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission of defrauding investors of at least $114 million through a form of stock manipulation known as a pump-and-dump scheme, in which a person spreads misleading positive information about a stock to raise its price, only to then sell off their own holdings at a profit—often leading to the collapse of the share price and financial pain for the remaining investors. A year and a half after this case began, Pulte took to Twitter to announce that he was investing in $ZACK—even as Constantinescu’s dogged online promotion of the coin closely resembled the relentless stock hyping that had gotten him into legal trouble in the first place. 

Pulte’s involvement with a memecoin backed by a recently indicted scammer is particularly notable given his role as the head regulator of two publicly traded entities key to the US economy, mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  (At the time Pulte tweeted about investing, Constantinescu’s charges had been dismissed; the court ruled that depriving people of crucial information didn’t count as fraud. Appeals court judges later disagreed and ruled that the charges against him could proceed. They were reopened in October.) That $ZACK has some of the hallmarks of a pump-and-dump scheme itself is even more troubling.

After Mother Jones reached out to Pulte for comment, his attorneys responded. They did not confirm whether Pulte invested in $ZACK, as he claimed on X. They told Mother Jones that he does not currently own the coin and did not profit from $ZACK. They also added that under Pulte’s leadership, “Fannie and Freddie continue to have stronger governance today than at any time in their long history.” Last month, court filings noted that Fannie Mae’s internal ethics watchdog opened an investigation into how Pulte has been able to access confidential mortgage information about some of Trump’s political foes that he’s publicized on social media; a dozen people who touched the investigation were subsequently fired. 

“The only people who make money are the people who usually get in before the coin is even launched.”

Constantinescu did not respond to a request for comment. Efforts to contact him through his former attorneys were unsuccessful, and he has not notified the court of his current representation.

Experts say that whether Constantinescu’s memecoin was a pump-and-dump scheme, a seasoned investor like Pulte should have stayed away from it in the first place. 

“Memecoins are a red flag,” says Fred Morstatter, a computer science professor at the University of Southern........

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