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Elon Musk has thrown his support behind Howard Lutnick over fellow Wall Street investor Scott Bessent in the race to be Donald Trump’s new Treasury secretary, as the world’s richest man flexes his status as close confidant to the president-elect. 

Musk, who Trump this week chose to co-lead an effort to cut government spending, on Saturday wrote on X that “Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnik will actually enact change”. 

“Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another,” he added. 

The comments from the head of Tesla inject new drama into the jockeying for Trump’s treasury secretary, one of the most high profile jobs in his cabinet that has yet to be staffed. Within the past week, Trump has announced a string of nominees in foreign policy, law enforcement, healthcare and other areas. 

A representative for Bessent said he could not be reached for comment and a Lutnick spokesperson declined to comment.

Bessent, a former chief investment officer at George Soros’s family office, and Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive Lutnick, who is also co-chair of the Trump transition team, are the top contenders to lead the Treasury department. Hedge fund billionaire John Paulson dropped out of the race for the job on Tuesday. 

Paulson said that “complex financial obligations would prevent” him from entering the administration “at this time” but he would continue advising Trump’s economic team.

Bessent and Lutnick have been spotted around Palm Beach and Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home and resort, since the former president won the 2024 general election last week.

Lutnick promoted Musk and his “department of government efficiency” at a Madison Square Garden rally for Trump last month.

Backers of Bessent, meanwhile, include Larry Kudlow, a key economic adviser to Trump in his first term, Steve Bannon, and his former boss and mentor, investor Stan Druckenmiller.

Musk wrote that “Courage during tough times is a great virtue,” in response to an X post by the CEO of Rumble praising Lutnick’s choice to support the business. Rumble went public via a special acquisition company led by the Wall Street investor.

Bessent has been criticised by some Trump allies for not being aligned with the president-elect on tariffs. However, Bessent wrote a Fox op-ed published Friday saying that tariffs are a “useful tool” to accomplish foreign policy objectives and raise revenue.

“The truth is that other countries have taken advantage of the US’s openness for far too long, because we allowed them to,” he wrote. “Tariffs are a means to finally stand up for Americans.”

Musk’s social media posts will be a test of his growing influence over Trump. The entrepreneur became one of the ex-president’s most vocal cheerleaders and prominent funders during his campaign — loyalty that Trump has rewarded by appointing Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the cost-cutting drive.

Musk has said he can cut $2tn out of government spending.

The billionaire also joined Trump during a call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, last week to discuss the war there.

In response to Musk backing Lutnick, investor James Fishback, a Bessent fan, asked the entrepreneur on X to moderate an interview with the pair.

“I’m open to that,” replied Musk.

More than half of Senate Republicans, including some in senior leadership positions, privately say they don’t see a path for former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to be confirmed as attorney general and would not support him to lead the Department of Justice, according to multiple people who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity.

While Gaetz’s ability to be confirmed appears on the rocks among Senate Republicans, President-elect Donald Trump’s team remains confident he will eventually be confirmed, even if it’s after an ugly battle.

NBC News spoke to more than 15 additional Republican sources who agreed that there are not enough votes in the Senate to confirm Gaetz, and some estimated that closer to 30 Republicans consider him unqualified.

Gaetz and Trump attorney Todd Blanche are moving full speed ahead on trying to fill out the Justice Department, according to sources familiar with the planning. If confirmed, Blanche would serve in the powerful No. 2 position at the Justice Department, overseeing all U.S. attorney’s offices throughout the country.

“President Trump and his team are focused on and confident in the confirmation of AG-designee Gaetz,” a person familiar with Trump’s thinking told NBC News.

Vice President-elect JD Vance and his aides have also been working the phones over the last two days to get a read on where senators stand on Gaetz.

Trump announced he was choosing Gaetz for the attorney general role on Wednesday, writing in a post on Truth Social, “Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.”

When the president-elect initially publicized his pick, many Republicans — except for House Speaker Mike Johnson, who got a heads-up from Trump — were in complete shock.

In his few terms in the House, Gaetz has often been embroiled in controversy.

He was investigated by the Justice Department in a case involving the alleged sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl, though the former congressman, who resigned his post shortly after he was picked for attorney general, has always denied the allegations and has never been criminally charged.

On Thursday, though, a lawyer for the 17-year-old girl wrote in a post on X, saying, “She was a high school student and there were witnesses” when the alleged incident occurred.

The attorney, John Clune, also called for the release of a House Ethics Committee report detailing the committee’s investigation into Gaetz, which has been ongoing for several years.

“If they want to send [the report] that’d be fine,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a staunch Trump ally, told reporters at the Capitol this week, though he added in a statement from his office that he planned to vote to confirm each of the president-elect’s judicial nominees.

On Friday, Johnson said he would “strongly request” that the report not be released publicly, though several Republican senators have said they would like to view the report as part of their deliberation process ahead of a confirmation vote.

“I don’t want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate can consider,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters at the Capitol this week when asked whether the Senate Judiciary Committee should be privy to the report.

“We need to have a complete vetting of the nominees, not only so we know that the nominee is qualified, but also to protect the president,” he added.

“I think when you’re at this point, particularly given his abrupt departure from Congress just prior to that report coming out, considering the job that he is being appointed to, considering that the FBI is going to do a background check anyway, I can’t imagine that the committee is not going to want to see it,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. “So, at the very least, those of us that will have a vote at some point, starting with the Judiciary Committee, should see that. And I can’t imagine they won’t.”

The House Ethics Committee was expected to meet on Friday to decide whether to release its report on Gaetz, whom it has been investigating on and off since 2021, according to a source with direct knowledge. The panel abruptly canceled the meeting, which House Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest, R-Miss., insisted was only postponed.

Later on Friday, an attorney for another woman interviewed by the House Ethics Committee said that his client “testified to the House Ethics Committee that she witnessed Rep. Gaetz having sex with a minor at a house party in Orlando in 2017.”

Several Republicans shared that Gaetz, who was investigated by the very agency he could now oversee, has a “steep hill” to climb toward confirmation in the Senate.

“I would guess if we had a vote today on the Senate floor, it might be more than that,” Cramer said Thursday when pressed whether 10 Senate Republicans could vote to oppose Gaetz — as Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal suggested to NBC News earlier that day. “I have concerns that he can’t get across the finish line, and we’re gonna spend a lot of political capital … on something that even if they got it done, you’d have to wonder if it was worth it.”

Republicans who oppose Gaetz now could still ultimately vote to confirm him when the time comes, especially if pressure from Trump mounts.

If Republicans wind up with 53 seats in the upper chamber after the recount in Pennsylvania’s Senate race is concluded, Gaetz will not be confirmed if more than three GOP Senators vote against him (Vance could break a tie as the president of the Senate).

Republicans like Cramer have also cautioned Trump not to jam someone like Gaetz through in a recess appointment, which would bypass the Senate confirmation process.

Shortly after he was projected to win the presidential election, Trump wrote a post on Truth Social urging Republicans running to be the next Senate majority leader to allow him to use recess appointments to confirm a Cabinet quickly.

This style of nomination would bypass the normal appointment process, leaving the Senate entirely out of the equation, by allowing Trump to appoint members of his Cabinet while both chambers of Congress are in periods of recess that last days or weeks.

The House and Senate currently gavel in for pro forma sessions while in recess to prevent the president from taking such steps to appoint Cabinet members.

Since the Truth Social post, Trump has not asked for any specific Cabinet pick, including Gaetz, to be confirmed via recess appointment.

“If the obstructionists are the other party, and you have the votes to confirm somebody, then I think you could make an ethical decision to provide that opportunity, that constitutional opportunity,” Cramer said. “On the other hand, if the opposition is preventing you from doing it with your own party, I think it runs a couple of risks. You could do it, but you’d have a very weak Cabinet secretary.”

Pyongyang has supplied Moscow’s army with long-range rocket and artillery systems, some of which have been moved to Russia’s Kursk region for an assault involving North Korean soldiers to push out Ukrainian forces, a Ukrainian intelligence assessment has found.

In recent weeks, North Korea provided some 50 domestically produced 170mm M1989 self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems that can fire standard rockets and guided ones, said the assessment, which was shared with the Financial Times.

The new weapons deliveries from North Korea mark the latest expansion of the authoritarian state’s support for Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. 

Michael Kofman, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said they follow a pattern of deepening North Korean involvement, “from sending large volumes of ammunition, weapons, and becoming a direct party to this war, which could help Russian forces retake the Kursk region”.

North Korea has already played a critical role in providing millions of rounds of artillery ammunition for the Russian military in 2023, he noted.

It has deepened its involvement this year by sending more than 12,000 troops, according to multiple western intelligence assessments, further internationalising the conflict.

The deliveries come at a pivotal moment, as the Ukrainian and Russian armies fight for territorial advantage before the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has vowed to force a swift end to the nearly three-year war.

Ukrainian officials provided information about the weapons after a photograph showing North Korean howitzers began circulating on social media this week.

The photograph, which open-source analysts were able to geolocate to central Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region, showed several howitzers covered in camouflage netting and being transported by rail westward.

The heavyweight weapons systems can fire shells upwards of 60km. The M1989 howitzers, produced in 1989, are slightly upgraded versions of the original M1979 models first produced in the late 1970s, which Pyongyang supplied to Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war.

The upgraded rocket system is based on the Soviet-designed BM-27 “Uragan”, or Hurricane system, a self-propelled 220mm multiple rocket launcher designed to deliver cluster munitions. North Korea said in May it had successfully tested the updated system with precision-guided munitions.

A senior Ukrainian official told the FT that Pyongyang now wants to test the weapons in combat. Kyiv expects them to be used against its forces that are currently holding some 600 sq km of territory inside Russia’s Kursk region. 

According to Ukrainian and western intelligence officials, Russia has massed a force of 50,000 troops, including 10,000 North Korean soldiers outfitted with Russian uniforms and arms, and are readying for an assault that could take place at any time. 

Ukraine’s forces in Kursk have lost nearly half of the 1,100 sq km of territory they captured in a surprise August incursion, according to military analysts. Kyiv is trying to hold the 600 sq km still under its control to use as leverage in any future negotiations with Russia.

But with Russia’s army on the march across much of the 1,000km frontline, North Korean troops bolstering their ranks and Ukrainian forces exhausted and stretched thin, they face a difficult task. 

In recent months, Russia has used its advantages in manpower and firepower to seize more than 1,200 sq km in Ukraine, according to Deep State, a Kyiv-based war tracking group closely tied to the defence ministry.

The group said nearly 500 sq km of territory was occupied in October alone. Much of what Ukraine has lost is in the eastern Donetsk region, where its defences around the strategic cities of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove are buckling.

Russia’s gains, though, came at an enormous cost, said UK defence chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin. He estimated that Moscow’s forces suffered about 1,500 dead and injured “every single day” in October, its worst month of casualties since its invasion in February 2022. Radakin put Moscow’s overall casualties at around 700,000.

Ukrainian officials told the FT on November 4 that their forces had fired at North Korean soldiers for the first time in Kursk. But the North Koreans, the first foreign military forces to enter the war, have not yet been part of larger ground assaults.

Ukrainian officials believe the North Korean troops, who include some of their country’s top special forces units, will play two roles in the looming Russian operation: some will fight among its infantry forces, while others will be used to hold and control territory retaken in the operation.

“North Korean troops can tactically benefit Russian forces in Kursk, although much depends on the numbers and how they are used,” Kofman said.

By using them in Kursk, he said, Moscow can free its forces “to continue offensive operations elsewhere in Ukraine’s east”.

North Korea previously supplied Russia with ballistic missiles and artillery shells. In exchange, Moscow has provided Pyongyang with military technologies to help with its missile programmes, as well as “money”, a senior Ukrainian official said. 

South Korea, the EU and the US, which have condemned the deployment of North Korean forces, have expressed concern that Moscow could reward Pyongyang with nuclear and ballistic technology.