With CFPB Purge, Trump Set to Deliver 'Corrupt Bounty' to Wall Street—and Elon Musk

The only U.S. agency tasked solely with protecting consumers from predatory corporations was hit particularly hard this week by the Trump administration's sweeping purge of the federal workforce, a gift to financial institutions that prey on working-class Americans with exorbitant fees and other abusive practices—and a potential boon for Elon Musk's personal business empire.

Employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), currently run in an acting capacity by Project 2025 architect and White House budget chief Russell Vought, reportedly began receiving termination emails Tuesday night, with the agency's enforcement division bearing the brunt of the firings.

Contractors and workers who were hired within the past one or two years were the primary targets of the latest round of terminations, Wired reported.

The outlet noted that the wave of terminations followed "a tumultuous few days at the CFPB" as Musk's lieutenants at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) "shut down a portion of the agency's homepage after a day of struggling to obtain access" to bureau systems last Friday.

That same night, Trump installed Vought at the helm of the CFPB, a move critics warned was a step toward Musk's stated goal of destroying the bureau.

Vought, a far-right ideologue, moved swiftly to halt virtually all of the agency's work, and even set up a "tip line" inviting corporations to file a report if they are "being pursued by CFPB enforcement or supervision staff, in violation of Acting Director Russ Vought's stand down order."

Robert Weissman of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said in a statement Thursday that "with their illegal and unconstitutional move to eliminate the CFPB, co-presidents Elon Musk and Donald Trump aim to deliver a corrupt bounty to Big Banks, predatory lenders, and other financial corporations."

"The CFPB has eliminated junk fees, capped credit card late charges, stopped the weaponization of medical debt, sued giant corporations, handled tens of thousands of individual complaints and provided relief to consumers of more than $21 billion—of course Big Banks, payday lenders, and financial scam artists want to eliminate it," Weissman added.

"This is a free pass for financial institutions to take advantage of consumers."

The Public Citizen co-president also put the spotlight on another potential motivation behind the Trump administration's zealous assault on the CFPB: Musk's foray into financial services, building off his existing control of X with a partnership with Visa that would allow peer-to-peer payments on the social media platform and beyond.

"Musk has a direct interest in eliminating the agency, which would be a regulator of X if it proceeds with well-reported plans to provide money transfer services," said Weissman. "No move could more clearly show whose side Trump and Musk are on—and who they are willing to exploit."

The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) noted in a statement Sunday that "if the CFPB can't do its job, no federal regulator will be able to prevent Elon Musk from building a financial services company."

More broadly, CFA pointed out that if the Trump administration shuts down or neuters the CFPB, no other agency will be able to assume the unique consumer protection role it played without a specific act of Congress.

"The CFPB was created after excessive risk-taking by financial companies, many of whom were not supervised by a federal regulator, crashed our economy," said Adam Rust, CFA's director of financial services. "It was created to protect people, not empower Elon Musk. If this administration chooses to cover its eyes from the facts, people will be put in harm’s way. This is a free pass for financial institutions to take advantage of consumers."