DOGE won’t save taxpayers a dime by downsizing the Securities and Exchange Commission, but the money may be beside the point for Elon Musk.

Musk’s cost-cutting outfit arrived at the Wall Street regulator last month—despite the fact that the SEC has its spending levels set by lawmakers and recoups the money through fees on the security industry.

• “They’re going to want to look for some kind of receipt, but I don’t think they’re really going to find it there because the taxpayers are not directly funding the SEC’s budget,” said Jim Toes, president and CEO of the Security Traders Association.

That reality raises questions about Musk’s motive. The multibillionaire has had an ax to grind with the SEC since 2018, when he reached a settlement with the agency to have an in-house lawyer at Tesla pre-approve his social media posts about the automaker. One of the SEC attorneys who led a subsequent case against Musk is among the hundreds of employees who have now left the agency.

While slashing the SEC’s workforce won’t generate savings, it may jeopardize the agency’s ability to keep pace with the industries it oversees, including the $26 trillion private funds market and crypto. More cuts are likely on the way as incoming chair Paul Atkins is expected to steer the SEC away from the aggressive enforcement favored by predecessor Gary Gensler. Read More

Two Democratic members of the National Credit Union Administration Board were ousted amid President Donald Trump’s quest to assert control over independent agencies.

The dismissal of NCUA board members Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka comes after Trump fired two Democratic commissioners at the FTC in March and a NLRB member in January. The latest firings will likely add to ongoing court challenges over the president’s authority to remove senior, Senate-confirmed officials from independent agencies. The removals are also raising questions about whether Democrats at other financial regulators, particularly the SEC and the CFTC, could be fired.

Quorum No More: The NCUA is small by Washington standards but is similar to the FDIC in that it examines regulated financial institutions and insures consumer deposits. “Removing two NCUA Board Members stops the agency from being able to enforce the law. The NCUA is now below a quorum, which is two members. Without a quorum, it can’t do anything,” said Todd Phillips, a former attorney at the FDIC and now a Georgia State University law professor. Read More