Musk Watch and Bloomberg – “Just nine days before his DOGE team visited CFPB, Musk’s X — the former Twitter — announced that it had struck a deal with Visa to process peer-to-peer payments. Musk has publicly mused about expanding into payment-services since he first took control of X in 2022. Entering that business could bring CFPB oversight under rules the agency finalized in November. The records DOGE can now access would include sensitive and potentially competitive information…DOGE-Backed Halt at CFPB Comes Amid Musk’s Plans for ‘X’ Digital Wallet….Government-efficiency team’s initial ‘read-only’ access expanded quickly to encompass closely guarded data, internal emails say.

With Elon Musk’s social media platform X poised to launch a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payment services [X Taps Visa as First Digital-Wallet Partner for ‘Everything App’ – Elon Musk struck a deal with Visa Inc., naming the payments company the first major partner on his mission to turn X into an “everything app.” Visa will help X users load money onto digital wallets — part of a long-teased X Money payments system, according to a post on the social media platform. Visa will link customers’ debit cards so they can send money to each other, and allow them to instantly transfer funds to a bank account. A payments network is a key pillar for an app intended to let users shop online, send money to friends]…

Musk’s associates have been granted access to confidential information about X’s competitors, an official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) told Musk Watch. Staffers at the United States Department of Government Efficiency Service, or DOGE, a White House body led by Musk, embedded themselves at the CFPB late last week. Politico reported on Saturday that Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought had assumed the role of acting director of the CFPB and instructed bureau staff to give DOGE access to all “non-classified” systems. The information that the CFPB collects on digital payment apps is not classified, the CFPB official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to communicate with the media. The CFPB uses a process called “supervision” to comb through the internal information and processes of financial institutions, the official explained, producing records the bureau describes as confidential supervisory information, or CSI. “If I were a potential competitor to Elon’s planned payments app, I would be concerned about DOGE looking at my CSI,” the official said. “Some of the information he now has access to: Violations of law that aren’t public, information about the systems and processes they use, the investigative tactics that the bureau used to uncover information about violations of law, how many customers they have.” “Musk now has tremendous access to confidential information about his competitors,” the official warned…”