The US Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly planning to cut its regional office directors in order to toe the line with the Trump administration’s government cost-cutting measures.
On Feb. 21, the SEC told the directors of its 10 offices scattered across the country that their roles would be gone in a plan it will file next month, Reuters reported on Feb. 24, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
The report said there was no plan to close the regional offices themselves. The SEC shuttered its Salt Lake City hub in June, citing “significant attrition,” which came just a week after a local federal judge hit it with $1.8 million in fines for its “bad faith conduct” toward crypto firm DEBT Box. Two SEC lawyers on the case had resigned in April.
Cointelegraph reached out to the SEC for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
The reported SEC plan comes amid a slew of changes in the country’s regulators and government departments since the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump , who wants to cut federal spending by gutting government staff and resources with the help of the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
A DOGE-affiliated X account that’s seemingly focused on the SEC posted to the Musk-owned platform on Feb. 18 asking the public to message the account “with insights on finding and fixing waste, fraud and abuse” relating to the agency.
The SEC, in its budget justification plan to Congress in March, requested $2.6 billion to cover its 2025 fiscal year budget but noted that it is “deficit neutral.”
On Feb. 20, the SEC’s senior staffers reportedly joined a call where the agency’s leaders said several staff were liaising with DOGE. One Reuters source said the agency’s various departments must report to acting chair Mark Uyeda with reorganization plans on Feb. 25.
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A majority of SEC staff are based out of its Washington, DC headquarters, but the SEC’s ten regional offices span from major finance and tech hubs like New York and San Francisco to smaller cities such as Atlanta and Boston to help examine and investigate companies in their respective areas.
Cutting the offices’ regional directors will require a vote by the SEC’s current three-person commission, made up of two Republicans — Uyeda and Commissioner Hester Peirce — and one Democrat, Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw.
The SEC has already begun to wind back its regulatory remit, especially its previous focus on the crypto industry under former chair Gary Gensler.
It’s now reshuffled and downsized its crypto enforcement team and paused many of its lawsuits filed against crypto firms. The agency had also reportedly relegated its former top crypto litigator to its IT department .
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