Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Monday, December 2nd. Today on Forbes, Elon Musk's money,

how he made it and spends it. Elon Musk, the 53-year-old CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and X-AI, is the

richest person on Earth. He is now arguably the most powerful, too. A former Democrat,

and a South African who came to the U.S. via Canada as a college student, Musk became a big

backer of Donald Trump in the run-up to the November 5th election, speaking at rallies and donating

$119 million to return him to the White House. It may have been the best

money he ever spent. In Trump's presidential victory speech, the president-elect declared

Musk a genius, then welcomed him into his inner circle at Mar-a-Lago, and even included him in a

Trump family photo. A week after the election, Trump named Musk a co-chair of a new advisory group,

the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge,

tasked with reducing waste and excess regulations

in the federal government.

There are potentially significant conflicts of interest at play,

given Musk's companies' ties to the federal government.

Musk-led SpaceX has inked nearly $20 billion in contracts with NASA and the Department of Defense

since 2008. Musk-led Tesla has faced investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration over the safety of its autopilot and so-called full self-driving features,

following reports of multiple crashes, including at least 30 that resulted in fatalities since

2018. And Musk-controlled X, formerly called Twitter, is subject to regulation by the Federal

Communications Commission. Trump recently nominated as FCC chairman, a current FCC director, who has been

outspoken about his support for Musk's companies.

Meanwhile, investors appear to applaud these ties.

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