President Donald Trump's newly installed chief of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau told all of the agency's staff on Monday to stay away from the office and do no work, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.
The move, which followed a weekend decision to shutter the agency's Washington headquarters, idled a federal agency of nearly 2,000 workers entrusted with enforcing consumer financial laws nationwide.
"Employees should not come into the office. Please do not perform any work tasks," Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought said in an email to all staff.
The move underscored tumult at the federal regulator since Vought, a longtime budget hawk and architect of the right-wing policy manifesto known as Project 2025, which called for the CFPB's abolition, took control of the agency on Friday.
The Trump administration's efforts to neutralize the agency escalated rapidly over the weekend as billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency gained full access to CFPB computer systems and Vought ordered a stop to all oversight of consumer financial companies.
Musk has publicly vowed to destroy the CFPB. The agency could otherwise regulate one of his planned business ventures with payments giant Visa.
Confrontations with staff, Democratic lawmakers and progressive organizations were set to continue on Monday, with a rally planned for outside the agency's headquarters near the White House.
Meanwhile, in a federal lawsuit filed Sunday, the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents CFPB staff, argued that Vought's actions violated the Constitution by undercutting Congress' power to set and fund the agency's missions.
Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee who first proposed and helped launch the agency, said in a video statement released on Monday that she was "ringing the alarm bell."
She said the Trump-Musk effort to kill the CFPB was a "payoff" to campaign donors who wanted to be rid of government oversight.
