Friedman was criticized for seemingly benefiting from his role as Chair of the New York Fed branch due to the federal government's aid to Goldman Sachs in recent months. He had "remainon the board of Goldman even as he was supposedly regulating [Goldman; in order to rectify the problem, he applied for, and got, a conflict of interest waiver from the government. Friedman was also supposed to divest himself of his Goldman stock after Goldman became a bankholding company, but thanks to the waiver, he was allowed to go out and buy 52,000 "additional" shares in his old bank, leaving him $3 million richer," as one report put it. Friedman's resignation announcement came within an hour of the government's release of the 2009 stress tests for 19 U.S. financial institutions.