'We Should Be Petrified’: Sean Casten Goes Off On Elon Musk And His Role In The Trump Administration

4/3/2025

During a House Financial Services Committee hearing about a "New Era For The CFPB" on Wednesday, Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) issued a warning about the reach Elon Musk has within U.S. politics.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00You know, quick question first, Ms. Fonseca, Mr. Pomeran.

00:05Would you both agree that banks, non-banks that engage

00:08in bank-like activities should abide

00:10by the same consumer protection rules

00:12that are required of banks?

00:13Yes or no?

00:15Yes. Yes.

00:16Yes. Yeah.

00:16Okay. I thought you'd say that.

00:18I raise that because I want to respond to something

00:21that Mr. Barr said in his opening testimony.

00:23He said that we have entered a new era

00:25where businesses are not attacked by tweet.

00:28Well, of course they're not.

00:29Because the owner of Twitter put a couple hundred million dollars

00:32into President's election campaign

00:33and in exchange got himself a job in the White House

00:35where he is hoping to earn a return on that investment.

00:38If the President were to attack Twitter

00:41or if the President's sycophantic enablers

00:43in the Republican Party were to attack him on Twitter,

00:46I mean, I don't know, that would require a level of patriotism,

00:48courage, and public-mindedness that they have never shown.

00:52Of course they're not.

00:52Doesn't make it right.

00:53But of course they're not attacking by tweet.

00:56So let's talk instead about how Elon Musk

00:59plans to get a return on his $200 million.

01:02Because if we give a damn about consumer protection,

01:05if we give a damn about competition and functioning markets,

01:08we should be petrified by what Musk is doing.

01:11Mr. Frotman, you had mentioned briefly with Mr. Sherman

01:14that Elon Musk is talking about this new payment system, xMoney,

01:17that is expected to launch later this year.

01:19I believe you had referred to his quote when he said he hopes...

01:22I'm going to misquote it.

01:24He said he hopes to have users conduct their entire financial world on x.

01:30The former CFP chief technologist

01:34said that he has been given God-tier access to the CFPB system.

01:40I guess my first question for you, Mr. Frotman,

01:41is have you ever seen a CEO of a bank, a non-bank, or anybody

01:45being given God-tier access to the CFP data system before?

01:49Absolutely not.

01:50And can you describe exactly what that means

01:52and what data Musk is now getting

01:54that nobody else in the private sector has access to?

01:57Sure. So this is tremendously concerning, I think, for consumers and competition,

02:03is that here is a person who has billions of dollars on the line

02:08when it comes to the dream of turning Twitter

02:11not only into a payments company, but into a super app,

02:15like we see happening in China and other places.

02:18And you have the person who stands to benefit from this

02:23seemingly in charge and making decisions

02:27over what is basically their only federal regulator.

02:31And I think there are significant questions

02:33if we want to talk about oversight by this committee,

02:36if we want to talk about investigations by the inspector general

02:39about what happened when Doge employees were in the CFPB on February 7th,

02:47and then that same day, Elon Musk is tweeting CFPB RIP.

02:53Can you just clarify, though, because he's getting information

02:57that Zelle, Venmo, Cash App,

02:59they don't have that information about specific consumers, right?

03:02Well, I think he's not only getting information about consumers,

03:05he's getting information about his competitors.

03:08Part of the job of the CFPB, as tasked by Congress,

03:12is to make sure we understand markets and where there's risk.

03:16And there's a ton of risk when it comes to non-bank payments.

03:19Well, I want to say something very partisan.

03:21I think the richest man in the world is rich enough,

03:23but apparently that's not a widely held opinion.

03:25Justice Brandeis famously, back in the 30s,

03:29said that when you have great concentrations of wealth in society,

03:32you only have three options.

03:33You can either allow the wealth to take over the government,

03:35which is to embrace fascism.

03:37You can allow the government to take over the wealth,

03:39which is to embrace communism,

03:40or you can break up the wealth and embrace competition.

03:43What is clear,

03:45and the fact that it is so partisan to attack the fact

03:48that the richest man in the world is now taking over our system,

03:51is that it is partisan to attack fascism.

03:54To say anything else in this committee,

03:55at this hearing, in this moment, is naive.

03:59Now, we are shortly going to move to marking up stablecoin legislation.

04:04It is my understanding that Mr. Musk is saying

04:07he would also like to use a stablecoin rule,

04:11some stablecoin legislation,

04:12in order to facilitate what he is doing in the CFPB,

04:15which would, unless we put really strict guardrails,

04:19is going to make it even harder.

04:20So I guess, with the last 40 seconds, Mr. Frotman,

04:23let's assume that he has all that data.

04:25Let's assume that he has a very permissive stablecoin environment.

04:31It sounds to me like we have a non-bank

04:34that is going to compete the hell

04:37out of all of the banks and all the systems that we have right now

04:41in a way that is deeply anti-competitive.

04:42Please tell me I'm wrong.

04:44You are 100% correct.

04:49We going to defend capitalism around here?

04:51We going to defend competition?

04:54Or we going to put on a ball gag, climb down in the dungeon,

04:56and just do whatever Trump tells us to do?

04:59I yield back.

05:02The gentleman yields back.

'We Should Be Petrified’: Sean Casten Goes Off On Elon Musk And His Role In The Trump Administration

Category

Transcript

Recommended