Musk associates granted access to confidential info about X's competitors
With Elon Musk's social media platform X poised to launch a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payment services, Musk's associates have been granted access to confidential information about X's competitors, an official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) told Musk Watch. Staffers at the United States Department of Government Efficiency Service, or DOGE, a White House body led by Musk, embedded themselves at the CFPB late last week.
Politico reported on Saturday that Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought had assumed the role of acting director of the CFPB and instructed bureau staff to give DOGE access to all “non-classified” systems. The information that the CFPB collects on digital payment apps is not classified, the CFPB official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to communicate with the media.
The CFPB uses a process called “supervision” to comb through the internal information and processes of financial institutions, the official explained, producing records the bureau describes as confidential supervisory information, or CSI. “If I were a potential competitor to Elon’s planned payments app, I would be concerned about DOGE looking at my CSI,” the official said. “Some of the information he now has access to: Violations of law that aren’t public, information about the systems and processes they use, the investigative tactics that the bureau used to uncover information about violations of law, how many customers they have.”
“Musk now has tremendous access to confidential information about his competitors,” the official warned.
The White House has said that it will be up to Musk to decide whether his work at DOGE conflicts with his business interests. “If Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, then Elon will excuse himself from those contracts,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday. Special government employees like Musk are forbidden by law from participating in government operations that affect their financial holdings. DOGE’s access to data from the CFPB, a federal financial watchdog, is an explicit instance of Musk’s business interests overlapping with his work for the White House.
The White House and Musk representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
The CFPB is an independent federal agency that was formed after the 2008 mortgage crisis to regulate financial institutions. Last year, the CFPB said it would begin treating digital payment apps “just like large banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions already supervised by the CFPB.” The CFPB also filed a lawsuit accusing banks of failing to properly mitigate fraud on the digital payment app Zelle.
“Digital payments have gone from novelty to necessity and our oversight must reflect this reality,” said then-CFPB Director Rohit Chopra in November. “The rule will help to protect consumer privacy, guard against fraud, and prevent illegal account closures.” Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Chopra was fired and replaced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Bessent was then replaced by Vought following Vought's Senate confirmation last week.
On Saturday, CFPB staff received a memo from Vought instructing them to cease “all supervision and examination activity,” according to a CFPB employee. The stop-work order has effectively put an end to the agency’s operations. Vought has also stripped the agency of future funding.
“This letter is to inform you that for the Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2025, the Bureau is requesting $0,” he wrote in a letter to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell obtained by Real Clear Politics. “The Bureau's new leadership will run a substantially more streamlined and efficient bureau, cut this excessive fund, and do its part to reduce the federal deficit.” The Federal Reserve System is responsible for funding the CFPB via its annual earnings, but it is up to the bureau's director to communicate the amount of money required to operate.
Vought’s letter aligns with a vision that Musk shared shortly after the 2024 election. “Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies,” Musk wrote in a November post on X. He has since celebrated Vought’s hostile takeover of the agency. “CFPB RIP,” he wrote in a Friday post alongside a tombstone emoji.
The Musk aides working at CFPB include former Twitter engineer Gavin Kliger, Nikhil Rajpal, and Chris Young, according to a source familiar with the CFPB’s operations. The trio’s work at CFPB was first reported by Wired. Reuters noted that Kliger promoted the work of white supremacists online prior to his tenure with DOGE.
Days before Trump began dismantling the CFPB, X chief executive officer Linda Yaccarino announced the social media platform would partner with Visa to launch the X Money Account. “Another milestone for the Everything App,” she wrote in a January 28 post on X. The feature will include “instant funding to your X Wallet via Visa Direct,” the ability to link debit cards to X accounts for peer-to-peer payments, and an option to “instantly transfer funds to your bank account,” according to Yaccarino.
With the CFPB now crippled, the regulatory environment has been cleared for Musk’s X to live up to his motto: “The everything app.” The CFPB union noted the advantageous turn for X in a Friday statement. “The unelected Musk recently announced plans for a new payments platform run jointly by Visa and 'X,’” the union said. “Now, he’s moved his power grab to the CFPB, in a clear attempt to attack union workers and defang the only agency that checks the greed of payment providers.”
On Sunday, CFPB staffers were told that the agency headquarters would be closed this week.
Right in front of our eyes. How the f did we get here? This must be stopped. Please someone smart step up and stop this invasion by White Christian Nationalists.
It's incredible to me how Americans are just letting all this happen. The Elon cult is real and powerful. They truly believe anything he says. I live it in my own house. The reality is that until we can confirm what Elon has, what he's done with it, or what he plans to do with it, and tie it to real-world situations and how this impacts Americans' daily lives, with those real risks, they just won't see the harm that's being done. Over the weekend, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina admitted that much of what Trump is doing “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” But, Tillis adds, “nobody should bellyache about that.” Add that to Vance saying that the President doesn't have to listen to the courts and we are in a constitutional crisis. So now what? I'm not sure we are getting out of this with an intact Constitution. The Constitution is still not back on our government webpage, and no one is even talking about that....there is too much other corruptoin to talk about daily.