President Trump’s shake-up of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau continues. On Friday night, Russell Vought, the architect of the Project 2025 plan and the newly confirmed director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, emailed top staffers at the CFPB to inform them that he’d been named acting director, according to the Wall Street Journal.
By Saturday morning, the CFPB account had been deleted from Twitter and the CFPB’s home page leads to a 404 “Page not found” message, although the page’s links are all still functional.
The bureau was a target of Trump’s during his first term, and his anti-regulation stance has only grown stronger since then. In November, Elon Musk, head of the president’s team to cut spending — the Department of Governmental Efficiency, or DOGE — tweeted out: “Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies.”
What happens now? It depends on who you ask.
Peter Idziak, a senior associate at Polunsky Beitel Green, doesn’t foresee a total shutdown of the bureau. “Although Elon Musk has called for the CFPB to be deleted, that would require an act of Congress. However, Acting Director Vought could minimize the Bureau’s activities through reductions in staff, reduced funding requests to the Fed, and continuing Bessent’s ban on continuing existing or opening new enforcement actions.
“I would be surprised to see Vought totally neuter the Bureau. He will need some staff to, at the very least, oversee the rule-making process for any existing rules he wishes to rescind or revise and any new guidance he wishes to issue.”
On Friday, while Bessent was still acting director, House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters and other House Democrats sent a letter to Bessent:
“We are deeply alarmed and troubled that you appear to be launching the Trump Administration’s plan to contravene the will of Congress and unlawfully ‘delete’ this popular consumer watchdog that enjoys the broad bipartisan support of four out of five Americans,” the lawmakers wrote. “…We urge you to immediately rescind what appears to be an illegal stop work order and allow the public servants at the CFPB to get back to work for the American people as required by law.”
Here’s a timeline of everything that’s happened at the CFPB since Trump was inaugurated:
Feb. 1
—Trump fires CFPB Director Rohit Chopra
Feb. 3
—Trump names Scott Bessent new acting CFPB director
—Bessent orders agency to stop working
Feb. 4
—Chopra leaves a blueprint for state-level enforcement
Feb. 6
—Elizabeth Warren urges White House to ‘unfreeze’ CFPB
—Mortgage servicers plan for a de-fanged CFPB
Feb. 7
—Musk’s team gains access to CFPB building, data systems
Feb. 8
—Russel Vought takes over CFPB
—CFPB home page delivers 404 message, despite being operational
