WASHINGTON — In what appears to be yet another move to consolidate parts of the federal government, President Donald Trump has appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The CFPB said in a statement Monday that Trump designated Bessent as the acting head on Friday. The agency's former director, Rohit Chopra, confirmed in a letter to Trump on Saturday that he was leaving the agency. He had a year left in his five-year term after President Joe Biden appointed him in 2021.
The Washington Post first reported that Bessent was taking over the CFPB. Bessent, a former hedge fund executive, was sworn in as treasury secretary last week.
The White House, the Treasury Department and the CFPB did not reply to requests for comment.
Trump adviser Elon Musk said overnight that he and Trump were shutting down the U.S. Agency for International Development. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that he is now the acting head of USAID. Musk has been leading the Department of Government Efficiency, whose goal is to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy, though it's not an official agency.
The CFPB was established by the Dodd-Frank Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law in July 2010. The agency said its purpose is to "increase accountability in government by consolidating consumer financial protection authorities that had existed across seven different federal agencies into one."
According to the CFPB, as of Thursday, its actions had led to more than $19 billion in consumer relief and $5 billion in civil penalties, and it said 195 million people have been eligible to receive relief.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who first proposed the agency when she was a law professor and later spearheaded its conception, said in a statement Saturday that Trump "will have a fight on their hands" if the administration destroys the CFPB.
"If President Trump and Republicans decide to cower to Wall Street billionaires and destroy the agency, they will have a fight on their hands," she said. She also said Trump would need a strong CFPB to follow through on his campaign promises to cap credit card interest rates at 10% and lower costs for Americans.
Warren could not immediately be reached for further comment Monday.
Bessent’s appointment at the CFPB was celebrated by Republican lawmakers and the American Bankers Association, which said it has disagreed with many of the agency's actions in recent years "that have exceeded its statutory authority, harmed our economy and imposed significant costs on American consumers."
“We urge Secretary Bessent to begin reversing the damage caused by these misguided regulatory actions and stand ready to support his efforts to chart a better course for the Bureau," ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols said. "Appropriately tailored regulation is the key to lowering costs for consumers and ensuring America’s banks can play their essential role in accelerating economic growth."
House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., applauded the move in a statement, saying Chopra's "repeated regulatory overreach wreaked havoc on our financial system to the detriment of the consumers his agency was created to protect."
Hill said he looks forward to reforming "this unaccountable agency by putting the CFPB under the appropriations process, making it a bipartisan commission, and providing appropriate statutory guardrails.”
