Musk team moves into US consumer finance watchdog as Trump defends billionaire

WASHINGTON: Members of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) moved into the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday, according to two people familiar with the move, as the Tesla CEO’s team extended its influence across the US government.

On Friday Musk posted “CFPB RIP” on X, his social media platform.

Republican President Donald Trump has tasked Musk, the world’s richest person, to oversee a drastic downsizing and reshaping of the federal government. Several early targets for Musk’s cost-cutting effort, such as the CFPB, have long incurred the ire of conservatives in America.

In November, Musk called for elimination of the CFPB, which polices and regulates consumer financial products, in a post on his social media platform X, saying it was duplicating the efforts of other agencies.

Three Musk aides are now listed in the CFPB directory as “senior advisors”, according to the two sources. They include Gavin Kliger, a Berkeley-educated computer scientist who has boosted white supremacists and misogynists online. Reuters could not determine what Kliger and his colleagues were doing at the CFPB and Kliger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk has also said he was working to shut down USAID, America’s main development and humanitarian aid agency. On Friday, workers removed USAID’s signage from its headquarters in downtown Washington.

A US judge on Friday said he will enter a “very limited” order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from taking some steps to dismantle the US Agency for International Development, adding that 2,200 employees from the agency would not immediately be placed on administrative leave.