Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Monday, February 10th.

Today on Forbes, why Elon Musk's China ties are Doge's biggest conflict of interest.

Billionaire Elon Musk and his young Doge minions set off alarm bells this past week

as they ripped through sensitive government databases and payment systems in a slash-and-burn

effort to chop federal spending. That's a problem because he's not an elected official,

many of his moves may prove to be fully illegal, let alone unconstitutional, and he's in a position

to use his Doge power to directly benefit his companies. But that's not all. Profitability for Tesla,

the largest source of his wealth, depends on one of America's biggest adversaries, China.

Tesla and Musk enjoy a particularly cozy relationship with China's Communist Party leaders,

receiving permission to own and operate its plant

there without a local partner, a requirement for every other non-Chinese automaker.

And it was the only growing market for Tesla last year as sales in the U.S. and Europe slumped.

Critically, it was the opening of the Shanghai Gigafactory five years ago that reversed

Tesla's financial fortunes after a decade of red ink. Since 2020, the plant's first year of

operation, the company has remained consistently profitable. With its sales outlook murky,

China's importance to Tesla and to Musk's personal wealth is even greater than before.

And that raises Musk's need to please Chinese authorities, who could pressure him if Trump's

policies are at odds with their priorities. Or as Vivek Ramoswamy, briefly Musk's Doge Wingman,

put it on his podcast in 2023, the billionaire will, quote,

jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need.

Musk, a frequent and aggressive critic of former President Joe Biden, is downright warm and

fuzzy when it comes to comments directed toward China's leaders on X, his social media

...