This past Saturday, Groundwork Collaborative Executive Director Lindsay Owens joined MSNBC’s Alex Witt to discuss Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) takeover of the federal government, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the financial interests that Musk has in taking over CFPB. You can watch the full interview here.
“Since its founding, the CFPB has returned $21 billion to American families in relief… That’s really what the DOGE’s effort is. This is not about government efficiency. This is about stopping protecting Americans, and it is about Elon Musk’s pocketbook…
“We know that Elon Musk is interested in starting his own payment app. He’s partnered with Visa to do that. And so, he has a real interest in ensuring that the CFPB isn’t blocking an effort like that.”
Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with a Groundwork expert about DOGE and the vital work of the CFPB.
EXCERPTS
“DOGE is now everywhere in the federal government, and they are spreading like bedbugs. What we learned yesterday is that DOGE has now descended on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We also learned that Russ Vought, the architect of Project 2025…is now running the [CFPB].”
“Since its founding, the CFPB has returned $21 billion to American families in relief… That’s really what the DOGE’s effort is. This is not about government efficiency. This is about stopping protecting Americans, and it is about Elon Musk’s pocketbook…Vought’s aim is really to destroy the government from the inside out. Elon Musk, I think, has likely a more sinister motive, which is also to kind of grease the skids for his new business interests.”
“We know that Elon Musk is interested in starting his own payment app. He’s partnered with Visa to do that. And so, he has a real interest in ensuring that the CFPB isn’t blocking an effort like that. But he also has an interest in getting into something like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has trade secrets from enforcement actions against some of his likely future competitors.”
“Most Americans had no idea what the Treasury payment system was until last week, when they found out that Musk had the keys to it… He’s interested in accessing this critical piece of fiscal infrastructure for two reasons. One is to stop payments to people and programs that he doesn’t like. But second is the access to the personal financial information and personally identifying information of tens of millions of Americans as well as companies.”