Elon Musk on Wednesday called for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that was founded in 2010 with a broad mandate to protect Americans from unfair and predatory financial practices.
“Delete CFPB,” Musk wrote in an X post Wednesday morning, calling the Federal Reserve-funded agency an example of “too many duplicative regulatory agencies” in the federal government. That reasoning has been questioned by numerous experts, who note that the CFPB was founded precisely because none of the overlapping financial watchdogs at the time focused on consumer protection.
“But there’s no reason to think facts or evidence have anything to do with Musk’s views,” Robert Weissman, co-president of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement. “Asking the world’s richest person, with a direct interest in a wide range of business lines, to run a project to review the federal government’s overall operations is absurd and fundamentally corrupt — and this issue highlights exactly why.”
Musk’s opinions on government reorganization carry more weight now that he has been appointed co-leader of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” by President-elect Donald Trump with a charge to cut federal spending across the board — with as little input from Congress as possible.
The billionaire owner of SpaceX did not specify why he objects to the CFPB, but it has often incensed the nation’s most powerful banks, credit unions, debt collectors and other financial entities. And Musk takes advice from other wealthy members of Trump’s circle like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who earlier this week accused the CFPB of “terrorizing financial institutions” in an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Andreessen’s firm has supported a number of technology companies that have run afoul of the CFPB, including a LendUp Loans, which the agency shuttered in 2021 on the grounds that it misled customers about its loan policy and overcharged military service members. The CFPB distributed nearly $40 million to consumers who had borrowed from that company. That’s a fraction of the $19.6 billion in compensation, canceled debts and other kinds of relief that the CFPB has secured since its founding in wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Under President Joe Biden, CFPB director Rohit Chopra has issued rules that would require banks to give consumers their financial data free of charge, shield consumers from medical debt and limit overdraft fees. Last week, the agency finalized a rule to scrutinize tech companies dealing with digital funds, a business where Musk is expanding his own footprint. In response to CFPB oversight, many large companies have sued the agency, complaining that it had exceeded its legal authority.
Musk’s desire to eliminate the CFPB echoes calls by Trump’s former aides who were involved with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. But even if Musk fails in this objective, Trump has other ways to render the CFPB impotent. Many of his top aides are looking for candidates to lead the agency that would rescind recent rules, cancel investigations and soften its enforcement. During Trump’s first term, the CFPB under then-interim Director Mick Mulvaney, struck down rules targeting payday lenders, cancelled a number of lawsuits and requested a budget of zero dollars from the Federal Reserve.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy