Musk is 'on point' about the CFPB: Frmr. Trump CFPB acting director
Elon Musk calls to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), making the agency the latest target of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which President-elect Donald Trump has named Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead. Actum Strategic Advisors co-chair Mick Mulvaney, who was part of President-elect Donald Trump's first administration, serving as the Office of Management and Budget director, CFPB acting director, and the White House chief of staff, joins Catalysts Hosts Seana Smith and Madison Mills to discuss his thoughts on the proposed agency and its plans. Mulvaney tells Yahoo Finance he agrees with Musk's idea to shut down the CFPB, saying, "In fact, we examined the possibility of whether or not I had the authority to shut down the agency [as acting director], the lawyers that I had hired actually told me that I could not, and I respected that decision." He adds, "Elon's comments are right on point," the CFPB is "a duplicative layer of additional regulatory oversight into the consumer financial protection relationship." On how effective he expects the DOGE to be, Mulvaney says, "One of the weaknesses of this department is that it isn't real. It doesn't exist. It's not statutory. It's essentially a PR campaign. Right now. It has zero statutory authority." He notes, "That being said, it's going to have a tremendous amount of visibility. We tried to restructure the government back in 2018 and failed, in large part because we weren't able to sort of build public interest in fixing a bureaucracy that has pretty much grown stale over the last 100 years since the modern bureaucracy was created during the New Deal. If Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy can shed new light on it and get people interested in fixing the bureaucracy, that will be great. It won't have the authority ... So, it's going to be an all of government effort." Musk has seemingly become a part of Trump's inner circle on the campaign trail, but there have been some concerns about the relationship. Mulvaney says he doesn't know how long Musk will last in Trump's administration, adding, "I don't care how long somebody is there. I care what they do while they are there. If he can succeed in this, that would be a huge benefit." He adds the "over-under on how long Elon stays is two years" given Republicans have secured control of Congress during the first two years of Trump's second term. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here. This post was written by Naomi Buchanan.
