By Douglas Gillison
(Reuters) – Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s newly installed head of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, instructed staff on Saturday evening to suspend all activities including the supervision of companies overseen by the agency, escalating the new administration’s efforts to neutralize the government watchdog, according to a memo seen by Reuters.
Vought also announced on Saturday evening on Elon Musk’s social media platform X that he was zeroing out the agency’s funding for the next fiscal quarter, saying the more than $700 million in cash on hand was sufficient.
The Office of Management and Budget, which Vought also leads, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did the CFPB, which Vought instructed to cease public communications.
In his Saturday missive, Vought ordered staff to “cease all supervision and examination activity,” going a step further than a directive issued last week by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whom Trump had briefly put in charge after firing Rohit Chopra.
The CFPB, which Congress created in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, supervises consumer-facing financial companies like banks, title lenders, mortgage originators and cash transfer services to prevent unfair, deceptive and abusive practices and other predatory conduct.
Vought’s order leaves much of that business activity without federal government oversight.
The weekend moves continued a lighting advance by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk to remake the federal government that drew protests from agency workers on Saturday morning and condemnation from top Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Musk, whose platform X is seeking to enter the consumer financial marketplace, has vowed to destroy the CFPB and representatives of his Department of Government Efficiency have been granted administrative-level access to all of the agency’s IT systems, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Union officials said on Friday that Musk was effectively seeking to seize control of his own regulator.
In a statement, Dennis Kelleher, head of Better Markets, which advocates for stricter government oversight of the financial sector, accused Trump of throwing his own voters “to the financial wolves.”
“This latest attempt to kill the consumer bureau is another slap in the face for all Americans who depend on basic financial products and services, but especially for those in the multi-racial working-class coalition of Americans that helped elect President Trump,” Kelleher said.
(This story has been corrected to say million, not billion, in paragraph 2)
(Reporting by Douglas Gillison; Editing by Mark Porter)
Comments