New details about the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) efforts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau became public on Thursday when an agreement between DOGE and the CFPB was filed in court. The agreement, which went to effect in January and will run until July 4, 2026, reveals that the CFPB is on the hook for all travel or training expenses that DOGE employees incur for work they do related to the agency. It also mandates that the CFPB must notify DOGE of any media inquiries related to its work.
The agreement was entered into court Thursday as part of a lawsuit against DOGE by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. It lays out the scope of DOGE's work within the agency, including that DOGE reps are meant to "champion the use of modern technology development and management approaches" and "promote inter-operability between agency networks and systems."
DOGE staffers are supervised by the CFPB, according to the agreement, though it also states that "USDS will discuss projects and the overall engagement with the CFPB on an as needed basis."
The agreement is signed by both Russ Vought, acting director of the CFPB, as well as Steve Davis, a Musk allegiant and president of Musk's Las Vegas tunneling venture Boring Co., who has been working with DOGE and is listed as a "USDS Approver" and "Special Advisor" to DOGE on the agreement.
You can read the full agreement below:
CFPB under fire
The CFPB, which was created by Congress under the Obama administration after the 2008 economic crisis, has been an early target of the Trump Administration’s cost-cutting efforts. The agency has drawn ire from Republicans, who have argued that the agency’s reach is too broad and not subject to proper oversight. More recently, the agency had upset Silicon Valley as it started to regulate payments companies and financial technology startups.
Since Trump’s inauguration, the agency has been subject to repeated attempts to dismantle its authority and shrink its staff and budget. Since Trump named Vought as the CFPB’s new acting director on Feb. 7, the agency has directed staff to stop working on rules, guidance, investigations, and all supervision and litigation; closed its Washington, D.C. office; stopped taking funding from the Federal Reserve; canceled $100 million in contracts; and fired 70 probationary employees, as well as 70 to 100 term employees.
Meanwhile, the CFPB has also been under attack in Congress. Last month, the Senate voted to overturn regulations that had given the CFPB authority to supervise payments companies like PayPal, Google, and Apple—and the House just recently passed the same resolution.
A judge has offered a reprieve to some of these efforts, however. In a lawsuit filed by a union representing CFPB employees against Vought, a judge recently reversed some of Vought’s actions by issuing a temporary restraining order. In the order, the CFPB has been compelled to reinstate all its probationary and term employees and has been forbidden from terminating employees without cause, issuing a reduction-in-force, or directing employees to stop work or take administrative leave while the case moves to discovery and later trial.
In that case, CFPB employees have testified via declarations that DOGE staffers had been planning to gradually fire nearly all of the agency’s 1,700 employees over three phases.
Do you work at the CFPB? Have more information? Reach out via Signal or email to Jessica Mathews at 479-715-9553 or jessica.mathews@fortune.com
