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The order to shutter the agency’s headquarters follows another order issued Saturday by Mr. Vought, who also leads the Office of Management and Budget, telling agency employees to halt nearly all their work.
- Feb. 9, 2025Updated 4:12 p.m. ET
Employees at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau received an email on Sunday saying the bureau’s headquarters would be closed for the coming week.
“Employees and contractors are to work remotely unless instructed otherwise from our Acting Director or his designee,” said the notice, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times.
Russell Vought, who now leads the Office of Management and Budget, was appointed late Friday as the consumer bureau’s acting director. Mr. Vought was an architect of Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for radically remaking the federal government.
The order to shutter the agency’s headquarters follows another order that Mr. Vought issued Saturday, telling agency employees to halt nearly all their work, including their regulatory supervision of banks and other financial companies.
The consumer protection agency, created by Congress in 2011 as a financial industry watchdog, cannot be closed without congressional action, but its director can freeze most of its actions by halting enforcement, weakening or repealing regulations and softening its supervision of banks and other lenders.
Stacy Cowley is a business reporter who writes about a broad array of topics related to consumer finance, including student debt, the banking industry and small business. More about Stacy Cowley
