Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are once again on President Trump’s radar.
In a Truth Social post Wednesday, Trump shared that he is “giving very serious consideration” to taking the government sponsored entities (GSEs) public, and “will be making a decision in the near future.”
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are doing very well, throwing off a lot of CASH, and the time would seem to be right. Stay tuned!” Trump wrote.
Taking the GSEs public would mean removing the government-backed companies from conservatorship, which they’ve been under since the financial crisis of 2008, and privatizing them, a move Trump has talked about since his first term.
Trump said he will be speaking with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), William Pulte, among others, to discuss, although did not specify a date.
After Trump’s announcement, Fannie and Freddie shares were up 33% at $9.94 and 27% at $7.15, respectively (at press time).
Earlier this week, the GSEs were the main topic of conversation during Pulte’s talk at a Mortgage Bankers Association conference.
Boasting about all the cuts he’s been making at Fannie and Freddie, Pulte said the first mission at FHFA is to get “this bloated enterprise on the treadmill…and get it running efficiently.”
Whether or not the GSEs are backed by the government, Pulte said he thinks Fannie and Freddie are set to become “great American icons once again.”
“I think President Trump is somebody who will help make them truly better than they’ve ever been before,” he said.
He and Bessent meet regularly on the topic of GSE privatization, and they “are very aligned,” Pulte added.
Ultimately, though, Pulte ended by saying that the decision is up to the president.
If made public, the U.S. government would reap over $250 billion from the sale, said James E. Thorne, chief marketing strategist at Wellington-Atlus Private Wealth, on X (formerly Twitter). An IPO could raise between $20 – $30 billion, he added.
A successful exit from conservatorship will remove about $8 trillion of liabilities from the government’s balance sheet, noted Bill Ackman—CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management and, at one point, owner of about 10% of the GSEs’ common shares, compared to the government’s 80%—in an X post late last year.
Outlining what an IPO would look like, if closed in the fourth quarter of 2026, Ackman calculated a $300 billion profit for the government.
“Trump likes big deals, and this would be the biggest deal in history,” Ackman wrote. “I am confident he will get it done.”
Critics of the idea have said taking the government-backed companies public could risk further housing market destabilization and mortgage rates rising higher.
