Less than 48 hours after President Donald Trump removed Rohit Chopra as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been named acting head of the Bureau.
“I look forward to working with the CFPB to advance President Trump’s agenda to lower costs for the American people and accelerate economic growth,” said Secretary Bessent in a release after being named to the role.
Chopra had served as CFPB Director since being appointed by President Joe Biden in 2021 for a five-year term, and Saturday, was removed from his role by President Trump.
Former hedge fund manager Bessent was confirmed last week as Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury by a Senate vote of 68-29.
“It’s been an honor serving as your @CFPB Director,” said Chopra on X when he found out about his dismissal from the role. “Every day, Americans from across the country shared their ideas and experiences with us. You helped us hold powerful companies & their executives accountable for breaking the law, and you made our work better. Thank you.”
Chopra wrote a letter to President Trump, “That’s what agencies like the CFPB work to fix: to make sure that the laws of the land aren’t just words on a page. Those laws are intended to check the enormous influence that powerful firms have over our daily lives. With so much power concentrated in the hands of a few, agencies like the CFPB have never been more critical.”
Bessent is a Yale graduate and former Chief Investment Officer for Soros Fund Management, the hedge fund founded by George Soros in 1970, Bessent serves as CEO and Chief Investment Officer for Key Square Capital Management, a New York-based investment partnership that he founded in 2015. From 1991-2000, Bessent was Managing Partner of for Soros Fund Management’s London office, including the period of the British Pound devaluation. He was previously associated with Brown Brothers Harriman, The Olayan Group, Kynikos Associates, and Protégé Partners.
From 2006-2010, Bessent was an Adjunct Professor at Yale University, where he taught economic history. He is profiled in the book on macro investors, Inside the House of Money, and is featured in Sebastian Mallaby’s history of hedge funds, More Money Than God.
In 2017, Bessent published two articles in The International Economy magazine: one on the suppressing effects of low real interest rates on volatility, and one discussing whether other countries are at risk for “Japan Disease.” This summer he wrote a piece refuting Larry Summers’s assertion that central banks, especially the Federal Reserve, are unprepared for the next economic downturn.
The CFPB is a government agency that implements and enforces federal consumer financial law and ensures that markets for consumer financial products are fair, transparent, and competitive.
