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Donald Trump’s administration has dropped a Joe Biden-era probe into a gun sales financing company backed by Donald Trump Jr, saying the initial investigation was “conducted in a biased manner”.
The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday wrote to PublicSquare, a conservative online marketplace in which Trump Jr owns a $1.5mn stake, saying it was closing an investigation into its buy-now-pay-later subsidiary, Credova Financial.
“After reviewing the case, the bureau has determined that this investigation exemplifies the type of weaponisation against disfavoured industries and individuals that President Trump [is] committed to ending,” the letter by CFPB’s chief legal officer Mark Paoletta read.
PublicSquare shares shot up almost 20 per cent on Tuesday after the letter was reported by Breitbart. Donald Trump Jr sits on the company’s board and owns just under 700,000 of its shares, according to Bloomberg, making him the company’s 14th biggest shareholder.
Credova, which helps gun buyers finance their purchases over time, last year reported the existence of the CFPB’s probe via a PublicSquare filing, but did not provide details of any allegations by the agency.
The company was absorbed by PublicSquare in March 2024 — a move hailed by Don Jr, who said he was “proud to be an investor in the company that is leading the way in the parallel economy”.
Credova also has a partnership with GrabAGun, an online weapons marketplace that went public via a merger last month, and in which Don Jr owns a stake. It underpins GrabAGun’s “shoot now, pay later” financing programme.
The president and his allies have long campaigned against the CFPB, and the administration has moved to drastically reduce the agency’s activities.
The CFPB has dropped several cases since Trump returned to power, involving companies such as CapitalOne and Rocket Homes.
In its letter to PublicSquare, the CFPB said it had found the investigation into Credova targeted its “constitutional rights”.
“In the early stages of negotiations, the bureau’s staff even expressed its view that to reach an agreement, Credova should consent to cease leasing firearms as part of its business,” Paoletta wrote.
The letter further alleged that the Biden-era CFPB had put pressure on PublicSquare to settle the matter once Don Jr was announced as a board member in the company last December.
PublicSquare founder Michael Seifert told the Financial Times that the outcome was “a win for our entire company, our board, our customers, and a Second Amendment community that has seen years of government attempts to unconstitutionally regulate businesses like ours out of existence”.
The company, whose board includes former Republican strategist Nick Ayers, said it was proud to have “stood firm in defence of our mission, our merchants and the constitutional rights of the Americans we serve”.
PublicSquare’s biggest shareholder is Omeed Malik, a former Bank of America Merrill Lynch executive who has become a financier to the Maga economy. Malik also founded anti-ESG investment firm 1789 Capital and is among the largest shareholders in GrabAGun.
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