By Douglas Gillison
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Workers at the U.S. Consumer Finance Protection Bureau demonstrated outside its headquarters on Saturday protesting Elon Musk’s assault on the agency.
The union said Musk’s DOGE agency had improper access to the bureau’s systems which could potentially jeopardize sensitive data and also said the CFPB could regulate a business Musk has indicated plans to enter.
The bureau’s website has been malfunctioning since late on Friday, around the time Musk posted a message on X that said: “CFPB RIP.”
About 100 people attended Saturday’s protest, chanting slogans and holding placards that accused Musk and President Donald Trump of subverting democracy. The protesters drew honks of support from passing motorists near the White House.
The demonstration, organized by a union chapter representing CFPB staff, came a day after that union said DOGE representatives had gained improper access to the agency’s computer systems, according to a statement on National Treasury Employees Union 335’s website.
According to a person with knowledge of the situation on Saturday, DOGE representatives have received administrative-level access to all of the CFPB’s IT systems.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has quickly moved to remake the federal government, gaining access to confidential data and drawing legal challenges from labor groups and state attorneys general. Early Saturday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Musk’s team from accessing government systems used to process trillions of dollars in payments, citing a risk that sensitive information could be improperly disclosed.
On Friday, Trump named newly confirmed Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought as the acting CFPB director, according to the OMB. Vought is a longtime budget hawk and architect of the right-wing policy manifesto known as Project 2025, which called for the CFPB’s abolition.
Congress created the CFPB in 2010 after the global financial crisis. The bureau was charged with policing and regulating the consumer finance sector, which originated the toxic financial products underlying the crash. Republicans have criticized the agency as being unaccountable and exceeding its legal authority.
The agency’s investigations, supervisory activities and collection of consumer complaints generate large amounts of confidential information.
In a Friday statement, the union noted that Musk’s X and Visa were partnering in an effort to offer direct payment services to consumers. The CFPB is the primary federal supervisory regulator tasked with consumer financial protection for larger nonbank participants, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Under former President Joe Biden’s administration, the agency returned more than $6 billion to consumers while imposing a further $3.2 billion in fines, according to the Consumer Federation of America.
These included a $3.7 billion settlement with Wells Fargo, over abusive consumer practices, the agency’s largest-ever enforcement action, as well as actions against Bank of America, Citibank, Goldman Sachs and Apple.
Musk and the CFPB did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House did not respond to detailed queries about developments. Representatives for Visa and X did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a statement, Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee who helped create the CFPB, said Congress had created the agency and that no one else, “not the President, not Elon Musk, not Russ Vought–can destroy it.”
(Reporting by Douglas Gillison and Lucia Mutikani in Washington and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Mary Milliken, Matthew Lewis and David Gregorio)
