Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is back at it again, this time pushing for something that could seriously hurt everyday Americans. Musk wants to “delete” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the very agency that has been helping protect people from being scammed by banks, payday lenders, and shady companies.
On November 27, Elon Musk took to his platform X to announce that he wants to “Delete CFPB,” referring to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Musk, who’s working with Vivek Ramaswamy to run President-Elect Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, claims the CFPB is just another example of “too many duplicative regulatory agencies” in Washington. But here’s the reality: No other federal agency returns money directly to Americans like the CFPB. While Musk criticizes the agency, it’s the one that has returned billions to consumers ripped off by unscrupulous companies.
You might be asking, why would Musk, of all people, want to get rid of the one organization that’s been handing back billions of dollars to ordinary folks who’ve been taken advantage of? Well, Musk has his reasons. He claims the CFPB is just another “duplication” in the government’s bloated system of regulations. But what he’s ignoring is that the CFPB isn’t like any other agency. It’s actually been putting money back in Americans’ pockets—something no other government agency really does.
Since it was created, the CFPB has returned over $19 billion to consumers who were ripped off by things like predatory payday loans, hidden fees from big banks, and fraud from companies like Equifax. And this isn’t a partisan issue; the agency has done this under both Republican and Democratic administrations. In fact, even Trump-era CFPB directors helped return $425 million to consumers during his first term.
But Musk doesn’t see it that way. He and other big business elites like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen are angry about the CFPB’s tough stance on financial wrongdoing. Andreessen even accused the agency of “terrorizing” banks and lenders after one of his companies, LendUp Loans, got caught misleading customers about their high-interest loans.
Here’s the kicker: Musk and his buddies are attacking the one agency that’s been giving back real money to people who have been scammed, while pushing for less accountability for the banks and financial institutions that cheat consumers.
Just a few days after Musk’s “Delete CFPB” post, the CFPB announced that it was mailing checks to 4 million people who had been scammed by dodgy credit repair companies like Lexington Law and CreditRepair.com. These companies illegally charged desperate consumers who were just trying to fix their credit scores. And the fines are huge—$2.7 billion, with $1.8 billion of that going back to people who got ripped off.
This is why the CFPB has such strong bipartisan support—more than 80% of Americans back the agency. People are grateful for the money that’s been returned to them, and they don’t want to see the agency weakened or shut down.
The CFPB has also made a difference in high-profile cases, like the one where they helped Lt. Col. Susan Parisi fight back against a loan company, GreenSky, that tricked her into a high-interest loan she never agreed to. Thanks to the CFPB, GreenSky was forced to return $9 million to consumers.
So why is Musk, who is already worth billions, trying to take down the agency that’s been helping regular people? Because the CFPB stands in the way of big-money interests, and it’s already caused trouble for powerful people and companies. If Musk gets his way and the CFPB is “deleted,” those same financial institutions that have been scamming consumers will be free to continue their shady practices without any accountability.
It’s time for Americans to wake up and realize what’s at stake. Musk wants to kill the one agency that’s making sure people aren’t getting ripped off by the financial system, while allowing the banks to do whatever they want. The question is: Will the public and Congress stand up and protect consumers, or let billionaires like Musk and Andreessen win?
Luckily, the CFPB’s funding comes directly from the Federal Reserve, which makes it harder for politicians to interfere with its work. But that doesn’t mean Musk won’t try to weaken it from the inside. It’s up to lawmakers, on both sides of the aisle, to make sure the firewall remains intact and the CFPB can keep doing its job: protecting regular Americans from getting scammed.
If the CFPB goes, so do billions of dollars in relief for consumers. That’s a price too high for most Americans to pay. Let’s hope the people in power know that.
