Initially, it seemed that things in the Consumer Financial Protection Office were terribly calm.
The director of the agency appointed Biden, which was created after the 2009 Financial Crisis for the regulation of banks and other creditors, was No He immediately fired President Trump. The lawyers in the agency continued their business. At the end of January, they stated that a remitting company misleading customers about their fees and Ordered pay a fine of $ 2.5 million.
And then the chaos began.
On the morning of February 1 – Saturday – the director was released as my colleague Stacy Cowleywho followed every reversal and turn of this story, reported. Until Friday, February 7 Russell Vought, Director of the Office for Management and Budget and close Advisor Trump, as the reigning CFPB director. Representatives of the new Ministry of Government Efficiency, which is led by Elon Musk and is not a formal department of Executive Director, arrived and arrived and arrived got access to computer systems.
Musk has published a message on his account X: “CFPB RIP.”
Musk’s cost of cost reduction works with little transparency. Members do not indicate what they are doing, who does it or how. It is worth understanding what is happening in CFPB, both because of the direct impact on the work of the agency and because it is a look into the book that Musk and his team who work with Trump officials like Vought , writes in real time.
Last Saturday, Vought Ordered nearly 1700 people who work in the agency Stop most of their work. Edict caused extensive fear and deep concern over the future of the agency. People feared that their work phones and computers were monitored. One employee I spoke to, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliatory measures, felt panic and then remembered that Vought had Spoken in 2023 its intention to demoralize employees in the civil service.
“We want the bureaucrats to be affected traumatically,” Vought said.
Some employees tried to engage in their work. Two of them told me that after they saw Muska post At X about their team’s preference for work on weekends, when federal offices are closed, they decided to do the same. On Saturday they saw three employees from the Musk team in the basement of the Bureau and worked in conference rooms with paper windows.
Confusion
These two employees who also spoke to me about the state of anonymity for fear of retribution, returned to the office on Sunday, about an hour and a half after the headmaster of the agency sent e -mail to inform the offices in a week.
Until 16:30, security officers in the hall called employees who showed up that they would not be allowed inside. Two employees and others who were already inside were working on gathering personal belongings that people feared that they could not get access to. As their colleagues who were not in the office, they sent what they needed, employees gathered clothes, family photographs and pump pump.
Above, some employees who were already inside were stuck in the window. “CFPB is fighting for you,” one said.
Release and departures
The White House spokesman did not respond to the CFPB commentary on which the agency was founded in 2011 after Elizabeth Warren, now a democratic Senator of Massachusetts, prompted President Obama to tighten controls on banks as part of a large financial reform Act 2010 In 2010, Republicans and the financial industry focused on it for years and claimed that it was irresponsible and exceeded its mandate.
Musk has his own connection with the agency. Office has a database containing hundreds of complaints about its automotive company, Tesla. The agency also regulates digital payments platforms – something Musk evolves in X, my colleagues note today.
Were the employees for now said Not to do a “work task” and the work of the agency is frozen. The division for recovery received on Monday e -mail, saying that he would stand on any continuing work, because there would be “new priorities of enforcement”.
Two key agency leaders resigned on Tuesday. Recently hired employees – employees who are still in their “test” period – have found that they can no longer access their e -mail or other work systems.
One of them was Taylor Sonne, 27 years, an examiner of compliance with the regulations living in Houston, who learned about the Bureau at the University and made his mission to work there. Five minutes after he realized he was locked, he received a message to his personal e -mail address that he was released because, according to the letter, the agency found that “it is not eligible for a continuing job”. Other test employees were also released.
Sonne was just promoted, he said, and had only one month before his trial period ended. He said his ending seemed to be surprised by his direct supervisor.
“It was humiliating,” he told me. “At the end of the day I just want to do my job.”
It is not clear what will happen next. Trump has nominated New director. However, the disruption raised persistent questions about the future of the agency and its mission.
Agency report
Random approach at the box office
After Muska’s team gained access to the payment system at the Ministry of Finance, Trump Administration claimed that employees could only see the data.
But my colleague Andrew Duehren reported yesterday that a young ally Elon Musk And the former Ministries of the Ministry of Finance accidentally got the ability to make changes to a sensitive payment database.
Judicial submissions revealed that 6 February officials of the Ministry of Finance found that Marko Enez had permission to read/write “one of the payment databases. Elez, a 25 -year -old former X employee, resigned from the team last week after being associated with racist contributions on social media.
According to the submission, this approach was canceled and the incident is investigated.
More about government agencies
Meanwhile on x
Musk vs. courts
Musk rarely does interviews, but uses his x account as a megaphone. My colleague Kate Conger, a co -author of the book entitled “Character Limit: How Elon Musk destroyed Twitter”, will guide you through its most important news in recent days.
Right now, Muska’s federal courts can be the strongest control. It seems to understand his feed on X, Musk understands it.
In the last few days, because the courts blocked some of these works, Musk urged some judges to lose their jobs.
On Wednesday, Musk repossed the message Senator Mika Lee, Republican of Utah, calls on the indictment of “corrupt” judges. Musk added the American flag Emoji. He shared several other messages from x users who accused judges of activism and overlap.
He also began a poll and asked his followers to answer “yes” or “no” at the call: “Federal judges who repeatedly abuse their power should be charged.”
In the past, Musk has joined with court supervision and left to a large extent to avoid the control of the courts. He focused on a special IRE on the judge of Delaware, who supervised several court disputes against him and his businesses, and his contributions to X accused her of corruption. He also reincorpated several of his companies in Texas to avoid pulling into her courtroom within the future court dispute.
Other remarkable posts:
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Musk celebrates his growing power. On Wednesday he shared his photos and videos in an oval office with President Trump. Musk goes to a fine line with Trump, who does not like to overshadow his helpers. Muska’s feed suggests that his strategy for this dilemma is epusive flattery. “I love @realdonaldrump, just like a direct man can love another man,” he recently said.
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He also celebrated a milestone when he had more than 217 million monitors on X.
– Kate Conger
According to the numbers
Number of heads
My colleagues follow the numbers behind Trump and Musk’s attempt to reduce the government’s payroll. Their regularly updated sum is here.
Do you have a tip?
The Times offers several ways to Send Important information intimately.
Muska’s world
The story of origin
Antonio Gracias, Investor Silicon Valley, who is one of the closest friends of Musk, recently downloaded the curtain a little in the earliest days of the Ministry of government efficiency. His description reveals Muska’s immediate frustration from government accounting.
At the “All-in” podcast, Gracias said he was in Mar-A-Lago with Musk during the transition, “trying to see how money really flows”.
“No one could tell us how it was flowing.” Where is it going? People didn’t know. ”
“How can the government know how much money it spends?” Asked, confused. “Just press the button on the computer and find out.” The problem is – this button does not exist. ”(According to the Ministry of Finance Federal Government spent $ 6.75 trillion last year.)
Gracias said he was still a little involved in Muska’s project. “I’m a little in and out and I’m trying to help where I can, but I’m not full -time there,” he said.
– Theodore Grinder
My colleague Ken Bensinger looks sharply about how Musk and other allies have suggested that journalists who report their work are “doxxing”. Ken writes:
For years, journalists have written about contributions to social media of government employees to help reveal the positions, motivation and events of public officials.
However, when the journalist recently trained the same lens on Elon Musk’s new program, the billionaire suggested that the news be illegal and join other powerful data associated with Trump’s administration that has made similar demands in recent weeks.
Ken notes that the groups of the first supplement are pushing back and pushing one official Trump to explain what laws were violated.
Read more here.
