Elon Musk holds up a chainsaw onstage in the course of the Conservative Political Motion Convention (CPAC) in Nationwide Harbor, Maryland, U.S., February 20, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
The Client Monetary Safety Bureau’s Trump-appointed management plans to fireside almost all its 1,700 staff whereas “winding down” the company, in accordance with testimony from staff.
In a trove of statements launched late Thursday, federal staff mentioned that the mass layoff was mentioned in conferences they attended this month with senior CFPB leaders and members of Elon Musk’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity.
“My group was directed to help with terminating the overwhelming majority of CFPB staff as rapidly as attainable,” mentioned an worker recognized as Alex Doe, a pseudonym used out of worry of retaliation.
Doe mentioned the plan from CFPB leaders and DOGE was to chop the bureau’s workforce in three phases. It will first get rid of probationary and time period staff, then perform a wave of about 1,200 layoffs, leaving a skeleton crew of some hundred staff.
“Lastly, the Bureau would ‘scale back altogether’ inside 60-90 days by terminating most of its remaining employees,” Doe mentioned.
The employees’ testimony comes at an important time for the CFPB, the company created to guard shoppers after the 2008 monetary disaster attributable to irresponsible lending. Since DOGE operatives first arrived on the CFPB this month, the bureau has shuttered its Washington headquarters, initiated the primary spherical of layoffs, and instructed those that stay to cease almost all work.
The filings had been made within the case began by a CFPB union that suspended performing Director Russell Vought’s strikes to shutter the bureau. After the CFPB fired about 200 probationary and time period staff, the company’s actions had been placed on maintain till a March 3 listening to.
The paperwork present an obvious disconnect between a number of the exterior messaging from Vought and the behind-the-scenes exercise on the bureau. In a movement filed Monday within the case, Vought pushed again in opposition to the concept that he deliberate to get rid of the CFPB.
“The predicate to operating a ‘extra streamlined and environment friendly bureau’ is that there’ll proceed to be a CFPB,” he wrote.
The Trump administration’s plan was to take the CFPB right down to the barest minimal staffing required underneath legislation: 5 CFPB staff would stay, both in a standalone workplace or folded into one other regulatory physique, the employees testified.
In conferences between Feb. 18 and Feb. 25, “employees had been instructed by Senior Executives that the CFPB could be eradicated apart from the 5 statutorily mandated positions,” mentioned one other present CFPB worker, this one recognized as Drew Doe.
“One Senior Government mentioned that CFPB will turn into a ‘room at Treasury, White Home, or Federal Reserve with 5 males and a telephone in it,'” Doe mentioned.
The staff mentioned that, if directed to by the court docket, they would supply their names and titles underneath seal.
This story is growing. Please verify again for updates.