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A private dinner attended by dozens of administration officials and close advisers to President Donald Trump was temporarily marred by a dramatic clash between two of Trump’s top economic officials, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at one point threatening to punch top housing finance official Bill Pulte “in the fucking face.”
The Wednesday evening event was supposed to be one of celebration: It was both the much-anticipated inaugural dinner at Executive Branch, the ultra-exclusive Georgetown club created by and for Trump world’s uberrich, and a birthday party for MAGA-friendly podcaster Chamath Palihapitiya.
A long table for the 30-some guests was set with top-of-the-line crystal and china. The guest list included Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Medicare and Medicaid chief Mehmet Oz, plus venture capitalist David Sacks, Palihapitiya’s partner on the “All In” podcast.
But amid the cocktail-hour din, Bessent lashed out at Pulte in an expletive-laden diatribe. The Treasury secretary had heard from several people that the Federal Housing Finance Agency director had been badmouthing him to Trump, a person close to him said. He wasn’t about to engage in chit-chat as if nothing was amiss.
“Why the fuck are you talking to the president about me? Fuck you,” Bessent told Pulte. “I’m gonna punch you in your fucking face.”
The scene was described to me by one eyewitness and four other people familiar with what happened. The only fact they disagreed on was whether it was Bessent or Pulte who initiated the conversation. They and others who described the conflict were granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
Pulte appeared stunned, and the tense encounter prompted club co-owner and financier Omeed Malik to intervene, according to the three people. But Bessent wasn’t having it — he sought to get him kicked out, the eyewitness said.
“It’s either me or him,” Bessent said to Malik. “You tell me who’s getting the fuck out of here.”
“Or,” he added, “we could go outside.”
“To do what?” asked Pulte. “To talk?”
“No,” Bessent replied. “I’m going to fucking beat your ass.”
Seeking to deescalate the situation, Malik separated the men, walking Bessent to another part of the club to calm down. During the seated dinner, Bessent and Pulte were placed on opposite ends of the table, and the party went off without further episode.
Bessent, Pulte, Malik and the White House declined to comment.
The confrontation — which one Trump insider called “bonkers” and another called “unhinged — underscores the surprising tensions between top Trump officials tasked with working on the nation’s most sensitive economic matters.
Trump announced in May that Bessent, Lutnick and Pulte would collaborate on a plan to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal housing finance organs Pulte oversees. In recent weeks, Pulte has taken the lead on an initiative that could put as much as 15 percent of Fannie and Freddie on the public markets.
But behind the scenes, the two men have clashed in something of a turf war over the mortgage giants as well as other economic matters, four Trump insiders told me. Bessent believes, some of the people familiar with their conflict say, that Pulte has inserted himself into matters the secretary views as his jurisdiction. Pulte, they add, has bristled at the threat of being bigfooted.
Complicating the entire dynamic, according to Trump administration allies closely following the drama, is Pulte’s close ties to Lutnick. The Commerce secretary and Bessent have had a rocky relationship since the transition, when the two men competed for the Treasury position. That has injected significant distrust into anything the trio work on together.
It was why Bessent — who feels he doesn’t have time for drama and backbiting given his massive portfolio, according to the person close to him — hit the roof when he saw Pulte Wednesday.
Both men enjoy close relationships with Trump and are known within the president’s orbit to openly jockey for influence and power — albeit in different ways.
Bessent, who comes across publicly as soft-spoken, has won Trump’s trust as a “soothing” presence for jittery markets amid the president’s unpredictable plays on tariffs and other economic issues. A cautious operator who’s been called a“moderating influence” on the administration, the billionaire former hedge fund manager has overcome his past association with Democratic megadonor George Soros and is now considered one of Trump’s closest allies.
Meanwhile, Pulte — a brash 37-year-old with 3 million X followers — has taken a more pugnacious tack in his lower-profile job. The scion of a family that made a fortune building homes, he quickly fired more than 100 Frannie and Freddie staffers as he took direct control of the key housing finance entities — often rolling out new initiatives on X.
In recent weeks his stock in the White House and in the MAGA universe more broadly has risen as he has used his post to launch mortgage-related investigations into several of the president’s critics. His efforts to target Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook — alleging she sought mortgages for multiple “primary” residences — have redoubled pressure on the Fed as Trump presses for lower interest rates.
Trump moved to fire Cook, a Joe Biden appointee, last month. She has called the allegations unsubstantiated and is suing to challenge her ouster. The case is pending.
Relatedly, Bessent and Pulte have been on opposite sides of the debate about whether Trump should fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Bessent, as my colleagues Megan Messerly and Victoria Guida scooped earlier this year, had privately cautioned that such a decapitation would destabilize financial markets.
Pulte, on the other hand, has repeatedly called on Powell to resign and has taken the position that Trump has the power to fire the chair for cause based on his alleged mismanagement of costly Fed headquarters renovations. Pulte even gave Trump a draft letter firing Powell, the Washington Post reported in July.
Wednesday’s dustup also wasn’t the first time Bessent has gotten into an alteration with a fellow Trump official. In April, he confronted Elon Musk just outside the Oval Office, accusing the tech mogul — then running his Department of Government Efficiency initiative — in a profanity-laden tirade of going behind his back to secure his chosen candidate, Gary Shapley, as acting IRS commissioner.
Bessent was pushing for another man, Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender, to get the job — and eventually got his way. Faulkender left the department late last month after just five months on the job.
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