Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a longtime outspoken defender of consumer rights and critic of Wall Street banks, condemned Wells Fargo on Thursday for giving its CEO a 35 percent pay raise following several scandals at the bank, and slammed executive Tim Sloan when he criticized her remarks.
Warren tweeted her outrage after regulatory documents revealed Sloan's 2017 pay rose significantly from the previous year, even as Wells Fargo was facing rebuke after its employees opened millions of fraudulent accounts in customers' names. The bank has been forced to pay nearly $200 million in fines due to its actions.
The bank was also sanctioned this week by regulators over another scandal in which it signed up and charged customers for auto insurance that they didn't need or request. Wells Fargo will have to give refunds to about 570,000 consumers.
In January, Sloan admitted that the bank was unsure whether it was operating without continued widespread fraudulence by its employees.
The executive pushed back against Warren's comments on Thursday, telling reporters at the Detroit Economic Club, "It's not surprising I disagree with almost everything Elizabeth Warren says. Most of her comments are both ill-informed and inappropriate." He also made sure it was known that he had declined a bonus on top of his raise.
Warren was decidedly unmoved, directing her next remarks at Sloan himself and questioning why, with an already-massive compensation of nearly $13 million in 2016, the year the fraudulent accounts scandal was uncovered, he thought it would be appropriate to take even more money from the bank.
