House GOP Prepares to Make It Easier for Tech Giants—Like Musk's X—to Scam Consumers
"Allowing companies like Apple, PayPal, and X Money to avoid federal laws creates a blind spot for rampant financial abuse and fraud," said one watchdog group.
An X Money account is displayed on a mobile phone with Visa in the background, in this photo illustration in Brussels, Belgium, on January 29, 2025.
Photo by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images
"Allowing companies like Apple, PayPal, and X Money to avoid federal laws creates a blind spot for rampant financial abuse and fraud," said one watchdog group.
An X Money account is displayed on a mobile phone with Visa in the background, in this photo illustration in Brussels, Belgium, on January 29, 2025.
Photo by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Jake Johnson
Mar 11, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
House Republicans on Tuesday are expected to join their Senate colleagues in advancing a resolution that would roll back a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule designed to protect the American public from scammers on digital payment platforms, a move that watchdog groups say would personally benefit President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.
The House resolution, led by Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.), targets a CFPB rule that was finalized shortly after the November election, in the waning days of the Biden administration. The CFPB said at the time that the rule would help ensure that companies offering digital payment services "follow federal law just like large banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions."
But the CFPB is now led by Project 2025 architect Russell Vought, who has halted virtually all of the agency's work while Musk's Department of Government Efficiency overtakes the bureau, looking to gut it from the inside.
With their effort to rescind the CFPB's digital payments rule, congressional Republicans are aiding Musk's assault on the CFPB and delivering a major win for his push into financial services with X Money. The Senate voted mostly along party lines to rescind the rule last week.
"This is a gift to Big Tech and likely the personal finances of Trump and Musk themselves," Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, said in a statement as the GOP-led House Financial Services Committee took up the resolution. "These companies process over 13 billion transactions a year, and millions of Americans are relying on them for safe and secure payments."
"Allowing companies like Apple, PayPal, and X Money to avoid federal laws creates a blind spot for rampant financial abuse and fraud," Carrk added.
Accountable.US noted in a recent report that both Trump and Musk stand to benefit financially from efforts to gut the CFPB and eliminate rules enacted under the Biden administration.
"Last year, Trump Media & Technology Group filed a trademark to create a broad financial services platform Truth.Fi," the group observed. "The products and services they said they would perform included the creation of a 'downloadable computer software' that serves as a 'digital wallet' to store and trade cryptocurrencies as well as a digital payments processing platform for purchases made with cryptocurrencies."
That initiative and Musk's X Money would fall under the purview of the rule that congressional Republicans are poised to roll back.
In a CNNappearance on Monday, former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said that Musk and other powerful corporate executives are "fixated" on the consumer bureau because it is "responsible for monitoring all of those tech companies for how they're moving our money to protect against privacy errors and fraud."
Mar 11, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
House Republicans on Tuesday are expected to join their Senate colleagues in advancing a resolution that would roll back a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule designed to protect the American public from scammers on digital payment platforms, a move that watchdog groups say would personally benefit President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.
The House resolution, led by Rep. Mike Flood (R-Neb.), targets a CFPB rule that was finalized shortly after the November election, in the waning days of the Biden administration. The CFPB said at the time that the rule would help ensure that companies offering digital payment services "follow federal law just like large banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions."
But the CFPB is now led by Project 2025 architect Russell Vought, who has halted virtually all of the agency's work while Musk's Department of Government Efficiency overtakes the bureau, looking to gut it from the inside.
With their effort to rescind the CFPB's digital payments rule, congressional Republicans are aiding Musk's assault on the CFPB and delivering a major win for his push into financial services with X Money. The Senate voted mostly along party lines to rescind the rule last week.
"This is a gift to Big Tech and likely the personal finances of Trump and Musk themselves," Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US, said in a statement as the GOP-led House Financial Services Committee took up the resolution. "These companies process over 13 billion transactions a year, and millions of Americans are relying on them for safe and secure payments."
"Allowing companies like Apple, PayPal, and X Money to avoid federal laws creates a blind spot for rampant financial abuse and fraud," Carrk added.
Accountable.US noted in a recent report that both Trump and Musk stand to benefit financially from efforts to gut the CFPB and eliminate rules enacted under the Biden administration.
"Last year, Trump Media & Technology Group filed a trademark to create a broad financial services platform Truth.Fi," the group observed. "The products and services they said they would perform included the creation of a 'downloadable computer software' that serves as a 'digital wallet' to store and trade cryptocurrencies as well as a digital payments processing platform for purchases made with cryptocurrencies."
That initiative and Musk's X Money would fall under the purview of the rule that congressional Republicans are poised to roll back.
In a CNNappearance on Monday, former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said that Musk and other powerful corporate executives are "fixated" on the consumer bureau because it is "responsible for monitoring all of those tech companies for how they're moving our money to protect against privacy errors and fraud."
Sam Bankman-Fried in an interview during the Bitcoin 2021 conference, Image via YouTube/Wikimedia Commons.
Jeff Lawrence
March 11, 2025
ALTERNET
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has pardoned and granted clemency to many high profile individuals — and "potential petitioners have taken notice," Politico reports.
Per Politico, "white-collar defendants [are] jolting to attention" and "casting themselves as victims of a crooked justice system" in a bid for Trump's lenience.
“A Democratic District of Columbia Council member facing federal bribery charges has lavished public praise on Trump’s pick to lead the FBI; a Bitcoin entrepreneur fighting extradition from Spain on tax charges has sat down with Tucker Carlson to plead his case," Politico reports.
Sam Mangel, a consultant for incarcerated individuals, told Politico "everybody that is in prison now is keenly aware of the environment."
"It’s become a very hot topic within the low- and minimum-security inmate communities,” Mangel said.
"People intimately familiar with the current parameters" told Mangel there are "limits" to Trump's leniency, Politico reports.
Per Politico, "Undocumented immigrants and people convicted of sexual, drug-related or violent crimes, [Mangel] said, need not apply. A White House spokesperson, Elizabeth Huston, declined to comment.”
Mangel told Politico he's receiving two to four inquiries a day and has had to hire extra paralegals to handle the surge. “The level of interest is unheard of," he said.
As Politico notes, "crypto entrepreneurs" are at the top of trump's pardon list.
Bitcoin miner Joby Weeks is one such entrepreneur vying for the president's attention.
"Weeks pleaded guilty to tax evasion and an unregistered securities offering related to his crypto activities, and he has been awaiting sentencing ever since, as the Justice Department continues to pursue a broader conspiracy case against other defendants." Politico reports.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has pardoned and granted clemency to many high profile individuals — and "potential petitioners have taken notice," Politico reports.
Per Politico, "white-collar defendants [are] jolting to attention" and "casting themselves as victims of a crooked justice system" in a bid for Trump's lenience.
“A Democratic District of Columbia Council member facing federal bribery charges has lavished public praise on Trump’s pick to lead the FBI; a Bitcoin entrepreneur fighting extradition from Spain on tax charges has sat down with Tucker Carlson to plead his case," Politico reports.
Sam Mangel, a consultant for incarcerated individuals, told Politico "everybody that is in prison now is keenly aware of the environment."
"It’s become a very hot topic within the low- and minimum-security inmate communities,” Mangel said.
"People intimately familiar with the current parameters" told Mangel there are "limits" to Trump's leniency, Politico reports.
Per Politico, "Undocumented immigrants and people convicted of sexual, drug-related or violent crimes, [Mangel] said, need not apply. A White House spokesperson, Elizabeth Huston, declined to comment.”
Mangel told Politico he's receiving two to four inquiries a day and has had to hire extra paralegals to handle the surge. “The level of interest is unheard of," he said.
As Politico notes, "crypto entrepreneurs" are at the top of trump's pardon list.
Bitcoin miner Joby Weeks is one such entrepreneur vying for the president's attention.
"Weeks pleaded guilty to tax evasion and an unregistered securities offering related to his crypto activities, and he has been awaiting sentencing ever since, as the Justice Department continues to pursue a broader conspiracy case against other defendants." Politico reports.
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