Why Elon Musk and conservatives want to ‘delete’ CFPB

Simone Del Rosario: The forthcoming Department of Government Efficiency has a new target. 

Elon Musk is calling to “delete CFPB,” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has long been in conservatives’ crosshairs.

The post came after tech billionaire Marc Andreessen blasted the agency on Joe Rogan’s podcast. 

Marc Andreessen: We have this thing called the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau CFPB, which was the, it’s sort of Elizabeth Warren’s personal agency that she gets to control, and it’s an independent agency that just gets to run and do whatever it wants, right? And if you read the Constitution like there is no such thing as an independent agency. And yet, there it is. 

Joe Rogan: What does her agency do? 

Marc Andreessen: Whatever she wants. 

Joe Rogan: What does it do, though? 

Marc Andreessen: Basically, terrorize, terrorize financial institutions, prevent FinTech, prevent new competition, new startups that want to compete with the big banks. 

Joe Rogan: Really?

Simone Del Rosario: Vivek Ramaswamy doubled down, saying, “CFPB started under Elizabeth Warren less than 20 years ago, and consumers are no better off for its existence. Quite the contrary, actually.”

Ok so how did CFPB get its start, and what’s happened since? Let’s go.

The CFPB was born out of the 2008 financial crisis. It’s the brainchild of then-future Sen. Elizabeth Warren. In 2010, Congress and then-President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Act, which created the bureau. It consolidated consumer financial protection authority from seven different agencies under one roof.

The bureau has had some blockbuster wins. 

In 2022, it ordered Wells Fargo to pay $3.7 billion over charging illegal fees and interest on auto and mortgage loans, wrongfully repossessing customers’ cars, and more.

This year, it banned Navient from federal student loan servicing and ordered the company to pay $100 million to borrowers who were wrongly steered into forbearance or had payments miscounted.

In total, CFPB enforcement over the years has led to nearly $20 billion in consumer relief and $5 billion in fines. 

CFPB has an annual budget of less than $1 billion per year. When it comes to trimming $2 trillion off the books, it’s not the biggest whale for DOGE. But it has been a big thorn.

See, the CFPB is an independent federal agency that gets its funding from the Federal Reserve Board. Critics have long argued that it’s too powerful, unaccountable, and burdensome.  

We’ve seen many legal challenges to CFPB, including this year, when the Supreme Court rejected a conservative-led challenge to the bureau’s funding. Voting 7-2, the court overruled a Fifth Circuit decision that CFPB’s funding structure was unconstitutional because it bypassed Congress, violating the separation of powers. The case stemmed from a lawsuit by the payday lending industry.

Had the Supreme Court ruled the other way, it could have evaporated the CFPB and thrown into question every rule ever made by the agency.

The Supreme Court loss has not stopped conservatives from continuing to challenge the bureau. Project 2025 calls for CFPB to be abolished, saying, “…the agency has been assailed by critics as a shakedown mechanism to provide unaccountable funding to leftist nonprofits politically aligned with those who spearheaded its creation.”

Abolition aside, with Republicans set to control Congress and the White House next year, the GOP is looking at ways to dramatically change CFPB’s powers. 

Meanwhile, with the changing of the guard coming soon, the CFPB under the Biden administration is reportedly racing to finalize rules in these final weeks. That includes a ban on including medical debt on credit reports.