Elon Musk has spent years laying the groundwork to transform X into a digital payments platform. Now he appears to be helping dismantle the agency that would oversee it.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration ordered a halt to effectively all work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the regulator that ensures companies like large banks, mortgage lenders, student loan servicers, and online payment apps don’t bilk their customers. It also barred employees from showing up to the agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters this week, apparently following the playbook it used to rapidly shut down USAID earlier this month.
Musk seemed to signal those moves were imminent on Friday afternoon, tweeting “CFPB RIP” just hours after members of his Department of Government Efficiency — aka DOGE — set up shop at the agency. “They did above zero good things, but still need to go,” he added later.
Many Republicans have opposed the CFPB since its creation as part of 2010’s Dodd-Frank financial reforms and have often called for its closure, arguing that Washington has too many redundant regulators. The agency has also clashed with Silicon Valley in recent years, such as when it forced LendUp, an online payday lender, to stop doing new business. Musk first tweeted that it was time to “delete CFPB” in November, after one of LendUp’s backers, the billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, harshly criticized the agency on a podcast.
But critics have noted that if the CFPB is mothballed, Musk also may stand to personally benefit.
“He’s not just looking at government efficiency,” said Adam Rust, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America, a conglomerate of nonprofits supporting strong regulations. “He’s clearing the way for his company to avoid regulation.”
The billionaire has long talked about his desire to elevate X from a social media platform into an all-encompassing “everything app,” where consumers can also hold their cash, make payments, and shop, similar to China’s Weibo. The company made major strides toward that goal by acquiring money-transmitter licenses in 40 states plus the District of Columbia, and last month announced a new deal with Visa that will eventually allow it to offer a digital wallet.
As a result, X would likely come under the CFPB’s oversight. Late last year, the agency finalized rules establishing its authority to supervise digital payment apps that handle more than 50 million transactions. It has also brought enforcement actions against payment platforms like CashApp and the group that runs Zelle for failing to adequately deal with fraud on their networks.
