Musk team moves into US consumer finance watchdog as Trump defends billionaire

Washington: Members of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) moved into the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday, according to two people familiar with the move, as the Tesla CEO's team extended its influence across the US government.

On Friday Musk posted "CFPB RIP" on X, his social media platform.

Republican President Donald Trump has tasked Musk, the world's richest person, to oversee a drastic downsizing and reshaping of the federal government. Several early targets for Musk's cost-cutting effort, such as the CFPB, have long incurred the ire of conservatives in America.

In November, Musk called for elimination of the CFPB, which polices and regulates consumer financial products, in a post on his social media platform X, saying it was duplicating the efforts of other agencies.

Three Musk aides are now listed in the CFPB directory as "senior advisors", according to the two sources. They include Gavin Kliger, a Berkeley-educated computer scientist who has boosted white supremacists and misogynists online. Reuters could not determine what Kliger and his colleagues were doing at the CFPB and Kliger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk has also said he was working to shut down USAID, America's main development and humanitarian aid agency. On Friday, workers removed USAID's signage from its headquarters in downtown Washington.

A U.S. judge on Friday said he will enter a "very limited" order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from taking some steps to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, adding that 2,200 employees from the agency would not immediately be placed on administrative leave.

The ruling came after the largest U.S. government workers' union and an association of foreign service workers sued the Trump administration in an effort to reverse the dismantling of the agency. The administration plans to keep fewer than 300 USAID employees out of more than 10,000, sources told Reuters on Thursday.

On Friday, Ed Martin, Trump's top federal prosecutor in Washington, announced he had launched an investigation into government employees who Musk has accused of stealing property and making threats.

"After your referral, as is my practice, I will begin an inquiry," Martin wrote in a letter made public on X to Musk and Steve Davis, the president of Musk's tunneling enterprise The Boring Company, who has been working with Musk at DOGE.

Musk and his DOGE team of mostly young men are part of a broader overhaul by Trump to remake the federal government and purge it of thousands of workers, including those Trump perceives as enemies or opposed to his conservative "America First" agenda.

Trump, who says the government is bloated and corrupt, said on Friday he was "very proud" of the work of Musk's "very capable" team.

He said Musk was acting on his directives and that no agency was off limits. "I'll tell him to go here, go there. He does it." Trump said, adding that the aggressive effort was necessary to "find the corruption."

Musk aides have entered multiple agencies, often without notice, and sought access to sensitive government computer systems since Trump took office on January 20. The visits have sparked a wave of panic among federal workers, who are also considering a buyout offer from the Trump administration that was issued to 2 million of the 2.3 million-strong federal civilian workforce.

A U.S. judge on Thursday temporarily paused the proposed buyout plan for federal workers until at least Monday, giving an initial win to labor unions that sued to stop it.

Even as the program was stayed, more than 65,000 federal employees have already accepted the buyout offer, a White House source said.

Opposition Democrats and federal employee unions have decried the power Trump has bestowed on South African-born Musk, who is unelected and appears largely unaccountable except to Trump himself. Musk is classified as a "special government employee" and is not drawing a government salary.

An Energy Department source told Reuters that three members of DOGE are also now installed inside that department.

Trump's new Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, told CNBC there are three DOGE staff inside the department but they do not have security clearances and do not have access to nuclear weapons secrets.