Elizabeth Warren has Grave Concerns About Elon Musk Gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Elon Musk in his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has closed offices of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and ordered CFPB employees to stop all work, including consumer financial protections.
CNN reports:
Warren argued that this is a bipartisan issue because Democrats, Republicans and independents all don’t like “getting cheated” on their mortgages, credit cards, payday loans or student loans.
Musk, by contrast, has argued that the CFPB is duplicative and should be eliminated to ease costly regulatory burdens on business.
Musk stands to gain financially from his efforts to cut through CFPB red tape, both with a Tesla subsidiary that provides auto loans and turning X into an everything app that will eventually let users send each other money, both companies engaging in activity that would typically be overseen by CFPB, and be considered a conflict of interest for anyone in Musk's current position with the federal government
Ann Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics, said the tone was set early on by Trump for opting not to follow conflict-of-interest norms set by previous presidents.
“Once the president says the rules don’t apply to himself,” Skeet said, “it creates the slippery slope we are now on.”
Ann Skeet, senior director, leadership ethics, quoted by CNN.