• Elon Musk says he wants to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
• The CFPB was created after the 2008 crisis to protect consumers from financial abuses.
• The CFPB has recouped billions for consumers but has long faced political and legal challenges.

In his efforts to cut government costs, Elon Musk has thrown his support behind slashing a federal office created in the wake of the Great Recession to regulate financial services used by Americans.

“Delete CFPB,” Musk wrote on X early Wednesday of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies.”

Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, has been tasked with heading up the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and finding ways to reduce spending and streamline bureaucracy within the federal government. The unofficial advisors have floated “deleting” entire agencies, laying off staff, and enforcing return-to-office mandates.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team said she had nothing to add to Musk’s statement.

While it’s unclear how DOGE and the incoming Trump Administration would abolish agencies, if it does, the CFPB could be on the chopping block. Here’s a look at its purpose, employee makeup, and political controversies.

Why it was created

The CFPB was created by Congress as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The law aimed to strengthen oversight of Wall Street after its risky mortgage lending practices caused the global financial crisis. The CFPB has a broad mandate to protect Americans from deceptive or abusive practices by US financial firms. The agency investigates consumer complaints related to credit cards, loans, bank accounts, and debt collection and enforces consumer protection laws.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School, originally proposed the agency in 2007. In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Warren to head the CFPB’s steering committee to help establish it.

“The time for hiding tricks and traps in the fine print is over,” Warren said during a White House ceremony that year. “This new bureau is based on the simple idea that if the playing field is level and families can see what’s going on, they will have better tools to make better choices.”

How many people it employs

As of March 2024, the CFPB employed just under 1,700 people, earning an average of about $184,000 a year, according to the Office of Personnel Management. The Bureau’s 2024 financial report broke that workforce into six groups; about 43% of CFPB’s employees work in the supervision and enforcement of financial institutions, 18% in operations supporting the Bureau’s other initiatives, and 14% in research, monitoring, and regulations.

What it has accomplished

Since its founding, the CFPB has recouped $19.6 billion for consumers through direct compensation, canceled debt, and reduced loan principals.

The agency has also issued $5 billion in civil penalties against banks, credit unions, debt collectors, payday lenders, for-profit colleges, and other financial services companies. That money is deposited into a victims’ relief fund, with nearly 200 million people eligible for relief.

Some of CFPB’s most high-profile enforcement actions have been against Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The agency in 2023 accused Bank of America of harming hundreds of thousands of customers by charging illegal fees, withholding credit card cash and reward points, and enrolling them in credit card accounts without their knowledge. Bank of America agreed to pay $250 million. In 2022, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3.7 billion — a record sum — after a CFPB investigation alleged the bank mismanaged auto loans, mortgages, and deposit accounts, causing some customers to lose their vehicles and homes.

Last week, the agency finalized a rule expanding its oversight to big tech companies like Apple, Google, and Venmo, which offer digital wallets and payment apps and process some 13 billion transactions a year. Earlier this year, the CFPB also limited credit card late fees to $8 a month, compared to the average $32 fee charged by issuers in 2022.

Political controversy

Democrats designed the CFPB to have political independence by funding it through the Federal Reserve rather than While Democrats argue that the CFPB’s independence is crucial to its efficacy, Republicans say the agency’s funding source and governing structure make it unaccountable to the public and encourage regulatory overreach.

Since its founding, the CFPB has faced legal challenges from Republicans and the banking industry, who’ve taken issue with a slew of agency policies, including those regulating credit card late fees and those making it easier for consumers to switch between banks.

In May 2024, the Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the agency’s funding structure, reversing a lower court decision in a 7-2 ruling. The high court’s decision — authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative — has bolstered the agency but likely won’t shield it from ongoing criticism and legal attacks.

Not everything the agency does has courted controversy. Recently, the agency won praise from Republicans for a new rule that would allow consumers to have more control over how their financial data is used by banks and other financial firms.

US stocks paused near record highs on Wednesday as investors digested fresh data that showed inflation made little progress toward the Fed’s 2% target in October.

After clinching record highs on Tuesday, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) fell about 0.1% at the open while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose less than 0.3%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) was down about 0.5%.

The mood is muted in the wind-down to the Thanksgiving holiday, which will see markets shut on Thursday and close early on Friday. But the Fed is taking the fore again after being eclipsed somewhat by the debate over the impact of Donald Trump’s tariff plans and Cabinet choices.

The latest reading of the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge showed price increases were flat in October from the prior month, raising questions over whether progress in getting to the central bank’s 2% goal has stalled.

The core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, which strips out food and energy costs and is closely watched by the central bank, rose 0.3% from the prior month during October, in line with Wall Street’s expectations for 0.3% and the reading from September. Over the prior year, core prices rose 2.8%, in line with Wall Street’s expectations and above the 2.7% seen in September.

Traders currently see a roughly 34% chance the Fed holds rates steady at that meeting, up from roughly 24% a month before, per the CME FedWatch Tool.

Also out Wednesday, the second estimate of third quarter GDP was unchanged, showing the US economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.8% in the period. Meanwhile, weekly jobless claims continued to move lower with 213,000 unemployment claims filed in the week ending Nov. 23, down from 215,000 the week prior.

Trump on Tuesday tapped Jamieson Greer — a veteran of his first term — as US trade representative. Given Greer was heavily involved in Trump’s original China tariffs, Wall Street is assessing what his role could mean for the big new tariffs promised for the US’s top trading partners.

On the corporate front, Dell (DELL) shares sank over 10% after quarterly revenue fell short amid flagging PC demand. Peer HP’s (HPQ) stock also fell post-earnings, down 8%.