By Tomas Kassahun
Blavity
https://blavity.com/
By: Tomas Kassahun
Blavity
https://blavity.com/
Elon Musk‘s team entered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau headquarters on Friday, seeking to get access to information technology systems, sources told Politico. Employees at the CFPB are now concerned about Musk’s team having access to sensitive personal data, sources said.
The CFPB’s employees union stated that some of Musk’s allies who are connected to his Department of Government Efficiency are now linked with the consumer bureau. Musk boasted about the latest development when he went to his social media platform, X, and posted “CFPB RIP” caption with a tombstone emoji.
The CFPB, which regulates financial institutions and nonbank companies, was established by Elizabeth Warren when she was working as a professor. Conservatives groups, however, see the agency as an unreliable regulator.
Rep. Brendan Boyle and some other House Democrats spoke up against Musk’s team entering the CFPB.
“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has saved American consumers over $20 billion. No wonder the billionaires running the Trump White House want to eliminate it,” Boyle posted on X.
Musk’s involvement with the CFPB also raises concerns about conflict of interest.
“There are enormous conflicts of interest at play here,” Aaron Stephens, senior legislative strategist at the progressive group P Street, told Politico. “His closest allies — billionaires in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street who spent millions getting Donald Trump elected — want to see the CFPB gone, ensuring there’s no one standing in the way when they rip people off and cheat them.”
Erin Witte, director of consumer protection for the consumer advocacy group Consumer Federation of America, expressed similar concerns about conflict of interest.
“DOGE’s continued aggressive movement into the CFPB is an obvious targeted attempt by Musk to assert control over the agency that he perceives as an obstacle to moving his beloved X into the payments space,” Witte said, per Politico.
As NBC News reported, “Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought has taken on the role of acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” and that “Vought, who was confirmed as OMB director Thursday despite strong opposition from Senate Democrats, replaces Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as acting head.”
Musk continues to cause uproar as he leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which Donald Trump touts as an agency built to “modernize Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”
Opponents, however, are raising alarms about the duo’s plans, particularly with Musk using young people to do his work.
“DOGE is not a legitimate agency. They haven’t been authorized by Congress,” Nadine Seiler, one of Musk’s critics, told Politico. “As a citizen whose information may be in here, because this has stuff to do with banking … there shouldn’t be 19-year-olds with no security clearance, and a private citizen whose interest is to make more money for himself, shutting down the regulations for banking.”
