Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management has amassed a nearly 20% stake in Hertz Global Holdings Inc. in a bet on the rental car company’s turnaround plan and that tariffs will boost the value of its vehicles.

The firm began buying shares late last year and now has “a 19.8% stake in the company comprised of outright share ownership and total return swaps,” Ackman said in a post on X.

Ackman is wagering that Hertz can get past a bad bet on Tesla Inc. electric vehicles and capitalize on a potential rise in used-car prices stemming from President Donald Trump’s tariff on US auto imports. It also relies on Hertz Chief Executive Office Gil West managing the company’s large debt load and pulling off an ongoing turnaround effort.

Hertz shares jumped 44% in New York trading on Thursday, extending a two-day rally in which the stock more than doubled in value.

West told Hertz employees in his regular Friday note this week that he’s humbled and encouraged by Ackman’s support.

“This endorsement is a testament to our progress, and importantly, the relentless effort each of you contributes every day,” West wrote in an email, according to a person close to the company. “We should be proud of the progress we’ve made but also recognize there is still significant work ahead.”

Trump’s 25% levy on imported automobiles is widely expected to raise car prices by thousands of dollars if it remains in effect for long. That could in turn drive up the value of used cars — especially late-model vehicles that are in short supply — as consumers who find themselves priced out the new-car market turn to previously owned vehicles.

“Hertz is uniquely well-positioned in the current tariff environment,” Ackman said in the X post. “Hertz owns a fleet of over 500,000 vehicles valued at approximately $12 billion. A 10% increase in used car prices would equate to a $1.2 billion gain on its auto assets – equivalent to approximately half of the company’s current market capitalization.”

Ackman sees a route for Hertz to get to $30 a share by 2029. Before this week’s rally, Hertz shares traded for less than $5. Getting there hinges on achieving West’s targets to reach $1,500 in revenue per unit, daily per-vehicle operating expenses in the low $30-range and depreciation per unit of about $300.

Pershing’s math also rests on Hertz getting its fleet utilization to 85%, a level the company has rarely matched and which has historically been closer to 80%.

Ackman isn’t the first Wall Street titan to envision upside from investing in Hertz. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn also thought he could cash in on the rental car company. Instead, Hertz went bankrupt and Icahn took a $1.6 billion beating.

In the near term, Ackman said, “we have low expectations for Hertz’s Q1 and first half results.”

So do analysts covering the company. Six rate the shares the equivalent of a hold and four recommend selling the stock, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

He also offered a bit of futurism for investors and his followers on X. Ackman floated the idea of Hertz — with its 11,200 global locations — managing a fleet of self-driving vehicles for Uber Technologies Inc. He quipped that he would contact Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

Khosrowshahi responded in a post on X that Hertz has been a “great partner” of his company, referring to a collaboration since 2021 to offer perks to rideshare drivers who rent electric vehicles through Hertz. Khosrowshahi added he is “excited to brainstorm on how we can expand on our relationship.”

Ackman concluded his post with a warning.

“Investing is risky,” he wrote. “There are no guarantees of a successful outcome. Caveat emptor.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Elon Musk’s Department of Government Affairs raced to gut the nation’s top consumer financial watchdog in a frenzied, 36-hour scramble this week, sending out pink slips to thousands of federal employees while lambasting “incompetent” agency staffers, according to court filings by affected employees on Friday.

The filings provide an extraordinary glimpse into the efforts to upend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that has become a prime target of Trump supporters. 

On Wednesday, according to recent court filings, the CFPB’s chief legal officer issued a memo to staff outlining the agency’s supervision and enforcement priorities, announcing a focus on fraud while deprioritizing areas such as loans, digital payments, and medical debt. The following day, CFPB acting director Russell Vought sent out a so-called “reduction in force” memo, informing thousands of employees that they were being fired. 

While an appeals court had ruled that any layoffs would need a “particularized assessment,” meaning that any affected employees were deemed unnecessary for the agency to fulfill its statutory requirements, an agency staffer testified in a court filing released on Friday that the CFPB’s chief operating officer dismissed any concerns that the direction was not being followed, instead saying that “all that mattered was the numbers.”

The staffer, who submitted a pseudonymous declaration because of fear of retaliation, said they were part of the reduction-in-force team. According to the document, DOGE member Gavin Kliger managed the RIF, keeping the team up for 36 hours straight to ensure that notices would go out on Thursday. “Gavin was screaming at people he did not believe were working fast enough to ensure they could go out on this compressed timeline, calling them incompetent,” wrote the staffer. 

Kliger did not respond to a request for comment. 

Jason Brown, the head of the CFPB’s 57-person office of research, testified that all but three senior employees were fired on Thursday, with no one consulted about whether the office would be able to fulfill its statutory duties after the layoffs. “The remaining employees lack certain technical expertise to fulfill these functions on their own,” he wrote.

Josh Friedman, an Air Force veteran working in the CFPB’s Office of Servicemember Affairs, wrote in a declaration that he was issued an RIF notice while serving on active duty at the Pentagon. He testified that all or nearly all of the office staff had been fired, despite Dodd-Frank requiring the agency to have the office. 

In the crosshairs

The CFPB, established more than a decade ago by the landmark Dodd-Frank legislative reforms, has long been in the crosshairs of conservatives, who maintain that its consumer protection mandate is redundant with other regulatory agencies and not subject to proper oversight. After years of unsuccessful conservative legal challenges to eliminate the agency, the CFPB became a prime target of many of Trump’s supporters during his most recent presidential campaign, with Musk tweeting “Delete CFPB” after Trump’s victory in November. 

The Trump administration quickly attempted to halt the agency’s activity and to conduct widespread firings after taking office, but was met with legal obstacles, including a lawsuit by some of the targeted employees. Even with the CFPB’s work largely stalled and Congress repealing the agency’s recent rulemaking, staffers have fought in court to be reinstated to their positions, arguing that attempts to “delete” the agency are unconstitutional. 

While the judge overseeing the case halted the CFPB from firing workers or shutting down the agency, an appeals court last week scaled back the freeze, allowing the administration to partly continue with its campaign. The CFPB’s decision this week to fire approximately 90% of its 1,700 employees, however, triggered a legal showdown. 

At a preliminary hearing on Friday, the judge overseeing the case issued a temporary block on the layoffs, though she will continue to decide whether they violate her previous order, with a follow-up hearing scheduled for April 28. In a filing on Friday, the CFPB’s chief legal officer argued that it is taking the bureau in a “new direction.”

“I applaud the federal judge for blocking Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s attempt to fire nearly all of the staff at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and for recognizing this latest move for what it is: yet another illegal effort to gut the agency altogether,” said House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) in a statement shared with Fortune.

A spokesperson for the CFPB did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Do you work at the CFPB? Have more information? Reach out via Signal to Leo Schwartz at 856-872-2064

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com