Warren vs. Wells Fargo Poised to Heat Up During 2020 Campaign
Warren vs. Wells Fargo Poised to Heat Up During 2020 Campaign
(Bloomberg) -- Elizabeth Warren’s presidential ambitions are becoming another headache for Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan.
The Democratic senator from Massachusetts took to Twitter Monday to again call for Sloan’s ouster, highlighting what’s poised to be a long campaign season for the bank’s leader. The tweet comes after Sloan said Friday on CNBC that Warren’s opinion of him “isn’t always informed.”
“It’s clear that Tim Sloan isn’t the right person to try to clean up @WellsFargo,” Warren said Monday in a tweet. “His hands are too dirty from overseeing years of scams and scandals. That’s not just an ‘informed’ opinion. That’s a fact.”
Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, has repeatedly called for Sloan’s ouster in the wake of a series of sales scandals at the bank that erupted in 2016, saying he’s been at the bank too long to be the right person to clean it up. Sloan, who took over when his predecessor John Stumpf was ousted in 2016, has been at Wells Fargo for more than 30 years.
In an emailed statement Monday, Wells Fargo spokeswoman Erika Reynoso said that Sloan has taken steps to implement “transformational change at the company,” including bolstering the bank’s compliance and bringing in new leadership, and will keep lawmakers updated on his progress.
“Since November 2016, under Tim’s direction, the company has undergone an extensive review process and has been working diligently to address and resolve the problems of the past, take care of our customers promptly and fairly, and transparently describe our progress,” Reynoso said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Hannah Levitt in New York at hlevitt@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Dan Reichl
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