Musk's CFPB conflict
The tech billionaire has long voiced his hopes of turning X into an 'everything app' that would also function as a payment platform, a vision brought one step closer to reality last month after X struck a deal with Visa to launch a digital wallet.
While Musk draws nearer to his goal of making X a payment platform, he has also become a leading force behind the Trump administration's cost-cutting efforts, which have effectively gutted the CFPB.
As Musk zeroes in on the agency that oversees digital payment platforms, questions are swirling about how he could personally benefit from rolling back the CFPB's oversight capabilities.
'It's important to raise the question of why the new administration is going after a tiny agency that is smaller than some high schools that does very important consumer protection work,' a former CFPB official said.
'The writing has been on the wall for a while in terms of Musk's animosity for the CFPB— someone who has also been very clear about wanting to turn X into the everything app, the payments app [and] the CFPB is the primary payments regulator at the federal level.'
Under Biden-era chief Rohit Chopra, the CFPB finalized a rule in November that brought nonbanks offering digital payment apps under its supervision, giving the agency greater authority to oversee companies like Apple, Google, PayPal and Venmo.
It also opened up comments on a proposed rule in early January about implementing the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, which aims to protect consumers against errors and fraud from digital payment mechanisms. The rule sought to apply the law to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.
President Trump fired Chopra upon taking office, giving Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) room to begin its overhaul of the CFPB.
Musk's DOGE officials directed the agency to freeze all work and fired about a hundred people from the 1,700-person workforce.
While Trump also moved to weaken the consumer watchdog during his first term in office, his allies have gone further this time to sideline the agency that has long been a source of frustration among conservatives.
A federal judge barred the administration from firing CFPB staff en masse or deleting the agency's data earlier this month amid concerns such steps were imminent.
However, government lawyers denied in a court filing Monday that the administration seeks to eliminate the agency.
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