About twenty technologists from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were dismissed Thursday evening, eliminating a team specializing in understanding the entry of Big Tech in financial products, three sources familiar with the question tell The penis.
He follows a previous series of effects of entrepreneurs mainly and probationary employees on Tuesday, As indicated by CableRepresenting the latest cuts to an agency with surveillance on an area that one of the companies of Elon Musk tries to participate. Musk, who now heads the government’s ministry of efficiency (DOGE), has announced plans for his business X to enter the payment sectorwhich is an area that the CFPB supervises For potential damage to consumers.
In a copy of a letter of termination obtained by The penisThe director of the acting human capital of the CFPB, Adam Martinez, reference Executive decree of President Donald Trump Increw the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government managed by the muscles to help eliminate the federal workforce. Thursday 7 pm Eastern time, the members of the technological team received the dismissal notices in their personal emails. A member of the team – who, like the others in this story, spoke of background to share their experiences frankly – said that the e -mail had only come to around 20 minutes after noticing that ‘They were locked up teams and prospects on their work telephone.
“We cannot investigate companies or business supervision if we do not understand the technology we are investigating.”
“The inhabitants of this team were the kind of elderly – sometimes in large technological companies, sometimes at first universities – that hiring teams are fighting dental,” explains Erie Meyer, who was chief technologist at CFPB during Biden administration. Meyer resigned last Friday, surprised that as a politician, the new senior officials had not already asked for his resignation. She was again surprised to learn that emails to her former colleagues announcing their dismissal Thursday have always copied her work email now missing.
Meyer, who previously worked at the Federal Trade Commission and before that co -founded the American digital service – the group that Trump has reshaped in DOGE – Technologists hired at the CFPB which could integrate through the agency and lend their expertise in everything, from research to application. “When I arrived at the office, it immediately became clear that the expansion of Big Tech in consumer financial products and services was a trend that we were extremely cautious to approach before it becomes a crisis,” said She. “We cannot investigate companies or business supervision if we do not understand the technology we are investigating.”
Now that the expertise has been ravaged by the agency overnight, and former agency technologists fear that consumer complaints remain unanswered, and companies will be able to get away with shady practices by obscuring them with technical complexity. “Most surveys have elements of technology, whether it is an algorithm, a model, a kind of AI or simply data systems,” explains a former member of the team technological. “They will say that it is too heavy, or it is not possible to produce the data … and to have someone at the table which includes the databases, which understand the technology in progress is really crucial To be able to repel. “
The history of CFPB technologists in the private sector also helped them understand where to search for information in technical systems, explains another former staff member. “When you are a regulatory agency of 1,500 people who try to find information on hundreds of businesses, and each company is ten times your size, the amount of information that is designed there and the techniques available to wrap the Useful evidence is thus enormous, that having the specific experience of developing the type of technology that you are investigating means that you can get the evidence faster, you can understand what it means very effectively, ”they say. “And you can push back if a large company tries to burst into an investigation or tries to distort what really happens to consumers.”
This is particularly useful when it comes to looking at technological companies, which have entered the financial services sector and often already have a wide range of users who could potentially be combined with their spending habits. “I would say that only one of these large technological companies is larger than the best five battles combined,” explains Meyer. The CFPB has managed to face some of these massive companies. He Fine to the apple and Goldman Sachs $ 89 million for having allegedly deceived iPhone consumers on interest -free payment options and continued Zelle and the three banks that have He allegedly allowed more than $ 870 million in consumption fraud.
DOGE has acquired an unusual level of access to the agency data
During the survey, the CFPB collects large amounts of information on companies, which can now be accessible by DOGE staff. A recent trial By a federal workers’ union says that Trump administration, Russell Vought, asked Dog to have access to non -classified systems from the agency. This level of access is unusual and worrying, a source told The penisNoting that even senior officials of the agency should generally provide commercial justification to access the data held by the agency.
What type of information does CFPB maintain? A document provided to employees of the CFPB informed congress this week notes that the agency has information on actions and application surveys, as well as market studies that may include business plans. If these data are accessible without appropriate railing, the document warns, it could create unjust competitive advantages for a company like Musk’s X, which plans to go to payment services. The information would include data sensitive to consumers, information on regulatory compliance on other financial institutions and initiate information that could be used unjustly, notes the document. The White House insisted This musk would withdraw from all work which presented a conflict of interest, but its commercial transactions are so vast that the X payment project presents only one example of the way in which its interests could intertwine with the agencies that Doge reduced.
When the CFPB collects confidential information during an investigation, companies allow it to understand that it will not be publicly shared, explains one of the former staff members. “There is absolutely the information we have that would be beneficial for someone who could launch a business in the payment space,” they say.
Consumers will also feel success, now that former staff members say that the portal for consumer complaints is probably no longer monitored. The agency receives complaints when consumers were locked in their bank accounts after data violations, for example, and could often solve their problems in the days, said the former staff member. “There is nowhere else” for consumers, they say. “They could potentially go to the generals of the generals, but they simply do not have the same capacity.”
When asked if they resumed their work if they returned to the table, the second former technology worker said they would. “I took this job because it was by far the best opportunity I had to help as many people as possible, as much as possible,” they say. “It is such a hard -hitting job that, yes, I would certainly take it, provided that I feel that I had the ability to continue to help people.” Despite the reduction in government staff in the past two weeks, this worker thinks that it is still possible. “The spirit of the kind of person intensifying to help others at their expense is anchored in almost all federal workers, and there are still many of those people who are launching.”