News PressBee .. News channel Watch the post from Elizabeth Warren has grave concerns about Elon Musk gutting her consumer watchdog, Now to the details
By Matt Egan, CNN
New York (CNN) — About a year before the subprime mortgage meltdown brought the global financial system to its knees, a Harvard Law School professor made the case for launching a new regulator to protect consumers getting ripped off by mortgages, car loans and other financial products.
After the Great Financial Crisis, that professor — now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren — got her wish. In 2010, Congress voted in favor of a sweeping financial overhaul that created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The new watchdog, reviled by the banking industry, would go on to return nearly $20 billion to consumers allegedly harmed by everything from fake bank accounts (see: Wells Fargo), illegal foreclosures and improper car repossessions.
Now, Warren is alarmed as the regulator she helped create has been virtually paralyzed by the Trump administration, in an effort led by the world’s richest man.
Days after billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whom Trump named head of the Department of Government Efficiency, posted “RIP CFPB” with a tombstone emoji on social media, the CFPB’s Washington headquarters were shut down. Employees were ordered to “stand down” from all work — even protecting consumers from financial abuse.
“Elon Musk is trying an end-run around Congress to try to sideline the cops on the beat so that he and a handful of billionaires can do whatever they want,” Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, told CNN in a phone interview this week.
‘Utterly outrageous’
The CFPB terminated the contracts of multiple expert witnesses in recent days, CNN has learned, suggesting the watchdog no longer plans to pursue enforcement cases against at least some financial institutions accused of hurting consumers.
“The richest man in the world is coming in to shut down a case where a lender is cheating working people,” one expert witness whose contract was canceled on Tuesday told CNN in a phone interview, alluding to Elon Musk. “It’s utterly outrageous.”
The CFPB did not respond to a request for comment.
Some in the business community argue the CFPB has gone too far in its quest to root out financial crime.
The White House said this week that the CFPB has become a “weaponized” arm of the government, one that has been unleashed to target “certain industries and individuals disfavored by so-called ‘elites.’”
President Donald Trump confirmed to reporters on Monday that his goal is to eliminate the CFPB as part of his quest to “get rid of waste, fraud and abuse.”
‘It’s damn popular’
Warren noted that Republicans have control of the White House and a majority in both chambers of Congress.
“Congress created the CFPB. Congress, and only Congress, has the power to end it. If they thought they could get enough votes, they could go get rid of the CFPB right now,” Warren said. “So why don’t the Republicans do that? The answer is because it’s damn popular.”
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.
Conflict of interest concerns
Of course, Musk’s business empire stands to gain from his efforts to cut red tape.
In particular, a Tesla subsidiary provides auto loans — an area normally policed by the CFPB.
Not only that, but Musk hopes to turn X, formerly known as Twitter, into an everything app that will eventually let users send each other money.
Yet Musk is presiding over the effort to gut the primary federal financial regulator overseeing payments.
During a question-and-answer session in the Oval Office on Tuesday night, Musk pushed back against concerns about conflicts of interest.
“All of our actions are fully public,” Musk said. “So if you see anything like, ‘Elon, there may be a conflict there,’ it’s not like people are going to be shy about it. They are going to say it immediately.”
Since Musk is serving as an unpaid special government employee, he will not need to file a public financial disclosure, the White House said.
“As an unpaid special government employee who is not a commission officer, he will file a confidential financial disclosure report per the norm,” a White House official told CNN’s Alayna Treene.
‘Slippery slope’
Warren argued that Musk is taking advantage of a loophole in ethics law.
“The presumption was that this option would only be used by people who are temporary and have very little authority. That is clearly not Elon Musk,” Warren said. “Elon Musk is operating as co-president of the United States. Elon Musk may try to hide his conflicts, but there are enough conflicts right out there in full view of the public to tell us he should not be allowed to make any decisions about the direction of this government.”
Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who was the chief ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told CNN that a judge should rule that Musk’s financial disclosure must be made public because he is already performing the work of someone who is a Senate-confirmed officer.
“This is a big problem,” said Painter.
Ann Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, 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.”
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
Elizabeth Warren has grave concerns about Elon Musk gutting her consumer watchdog News Channel 3-12.
elizabeth warren has grave concerns about elon musk gutting her consumer
Please note that the original topic has been published and is available on News channel the editing team at PressBee have verified it and it may have been partially modified or quoted from it. You can read and follow this news or topic from its main source.