If your bank rips you off, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau gets your money back. Elon Musk is killing it
Earlier this month, an X user posed a simple question to Elon Musk after the Donald Trump-appointed government slasher threatened the existence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“What is the deal with the CFPB?” Scott G asked.
Musk had just posted “CFPB RIP,” seemingly an indication that the bureau was on the billionaire’s hit list.
“I’m genuinely curious @elonmusk,” Scott wrote. “I’ve used the CFPB after my bank was giving me the run around and I had a bunch of fraud charges that they wouldn’t refund me, after telling me they found them as fraudulent. Within a week I had my money back. So explain to me how this doesn’t benefit us as American citizens?”
He isn’t alone, the independent agency estimated its enforcement has resulted in $21 billion in compensation for Americans. Anyone who wasn’t raked over the coals by an overdraft fee can thank the CFPB. Those who weren’t paid interest on their Capital One supposed high yield savings account received payouts after the agency took the bank to court on their behalf. Anyone who might have fallen prey to predatory lending practices — the same that plunged the U.S. into the Great Recession and financial crisis of the early 2000’s — can rest assured that the agency stopped banks from offering them in the first place.
But now, thanks to Trump, Musk, and interests within the banking industry, the armor provided to American consumers by the CFPB is being stripped away. The agency’s new head and Project 2025 co-author, Russell Vought, issued a work stop order on Saturday, and said the agency would stop taking funding from the Federal Reserve. On Tuesday night, dozens of probationary workers at the bureau were terminated, according to the union.
Vought’s decision comes as Musk’s DOGE team reportedly tries to access CFPB personnel information and amid a removal of the agency’s public-facing social media accounts, according to NBC News. The future of the agency — and of consumer protections from predatory and unscrupulous practices by banks, credit providers, and other lending services — remains unknown.
The CFPB was established in 2011 under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Initially conceived by then-law professor Elizabeth Warren in 2007, former President Barack Obama ran with the idea and implemented into reforms put into place following the financial crisis of 2007-2008. The agency is an independent office within the Federal Reserve and funded by it.
The crisis and the subsequent Great Recession that fueled massive unemployment and saw millions of Americans facing home foreclosures was caused in part by predatory lending practices by banks offering subprime loans to borrowers who couldn’t secure financing through more traditional means.
The CFPB was established to act as a regulatory watchdog and enforcement arm to prevent these practices. The agency both fined institutions that either took advantage of consumers or failed to deliver on services or protections they promised customers and advocated for more consumer-friendly banking and lending practices, like capping overdraft fees and credit card interest rates.
Since its inception, the agency has fined financial institutions and individuals more than $5 billion in civil penalties after they violate US law, according to the agency’s website.
In addition to the money its won back for consumers, the agency also acted as a source of information, providing more than 63 million users with answers to financial questions and collecting more than 6.8 million complaints by consumers who felt wronged by companies. Those complaints were then sent to the companies in question, but with the heft of the federal government behind them.
“Without strong oversight and enforcement, consumers are particularly vulnerable to predatory practices, hidden fees, and data privacy violations,” Delicia Hand, the senior director of digital marketplace policy at Consumer Reports, told USA Today. “Consumers face an increasingly complex financial marketplace dominated by AI, big tech, and new digital products, making the CFPB’s work more critical now than ever.”
That’s the heart of Scott G’s question; why kill the agency tasked with protecting American consumers?
