“Elon Musk has quickly become an influential figure in President-elect Trump’s inner circle, but there are signs of tension between Musk and a longtime Trump adviser over Cabinet appointments to the new administration,” Axios reports.

“The friction between Musk and Boris Epshteyn — a top adviser who’s pushed for Cabinet picks that include Matt Gaetz for attorney general — surfaced in public last week. It signaled a rivalry stemming from Musk’s growing influence on the president-elect, to the dismay of some Trump loyalists.”

“Donald Trump is refusing to back down over his Cabinet picks in the first clash in an epic battle he will wage against Washington when he takes office next year,” CNN reports.

“The coming days will show whether Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have staying power for confirmation fights in the new Republican Senate over their assignments to safeguard the rule of law, the US intelligence community, the military, and the health and well-being of all Americans.”

“President-elect Donald Trump has told advisers he is standing by his nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, after the transition team was jolted by an allegation he had sexually assaulted a woman in an interaction he insists was consensual,” the New York Times reports.

Washington Post: Pentagon pick left National Guard after being reported as possible “insider threat” due to tattoo.

“President-elect Donald Trump is eyeing a new candidate for Treasury Secretary amid internal debate over who should have the role: the former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump is also considering the Wall Street billionaire Marc Rowan.”

“Mr. Trump had been expected to pick either Howard Lutnick, the chief executive of the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, or Scott Bessent, the founder of the investment firm Key Square Capital Management and a former money manager for George Soros. And he had been seen as likely to make the selection late last week.”

“But he has been having second thoughts about the top two candidates, and has slowed down his selection process.”

Wall Street Journal: Trump broadens hunt for top Treasury job after jostling became messy.

“Billionaire Elon Musk and Key Square Group LP founder Scott Bessent, whom President-elect Donald Trump is considering for Treasury secretary, spoke after Musk publicly endorsed Howard Lutnick as the best pick for the post,” Bloomberg reports.

“Trump’s decision on who will take on the powerful cabinet post — which includes overseeing the $28 trillion Treasuries market and economic sanctions — has become riddled with chaos as the two top advisers publicly battle for the job.”

David Remnick: “The President-elect’s nominations look like the most flagrant act of vindictive trolling since the rise of the Internet. But it is a trolling beyond mischief.”

“Multiple current and former senior Justice Department and FBI officials have begun reaching out to lawyers in anticipation of being criminally investigated by the Trump administration,” NBC News reports.

“Following Trump’s decisive election victory, many DOJ officials and career staffers were already nervous about the possibility that they would be targeted by Trump loyalists, particularly members of Congress. But the selection of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, a firebrand Trump ally who was the subject of a recent FBI investigation, to lead the department has sharply increased the sense of alarm, the sources said.”

“Donald Trump rewarded the tycoons behind the shale boom, among his most ardent supporters, with the selection Saturday of Chris Wright as his nominee for Energy Secretary,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Wright was front-and-center for the fracking revolution that reshaped the country as a band of scrappy wildcatters that reinvigorated U.S. oil and gas production to record heights. His $2.8 billion company, Liberty Energy, pumps water and sand underground to frack customers’ wells.”

“Wright’s selection elevates a pugnacious branch of the oil-and-gas industry that is skeptical of climate-change science and mostly hasn’t pledged to build out low-carbon energy businesses, unlike giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron.”

“President-elect Trump has set a modern record for staffing his government, with 12 Cabinet-level appointments in the 12 days since the election,” Axios reports.

“That’s five times faster than President Biden made the same number of picks for his administration — and four times faster than Trump’s pick for his first administration.”

New York Times: “Mr. Andreessen’s excitement is a hint of just how broadly the victory by Mr. Trump has resonated with business executives who invested millions of dollars in his candidacy and now stand to profit from his policies.”

“Theirs is a circle of deep-pocketed industry winners that extends far beyond Elon Musk. It is a more diverse group, at least in terms of business interests, than the one that surrounded Mr. Trump in his first administration, where executives from the oil, gas and coal industries were particularly dominant.”

CNN: The crypto industry plowed tens of millions into the election. Now, it’s looking for a return on that investment.

“President-elect Donald Trump’s defense secretary pick, Pete Hegseth, paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault in a settlement agreement that included a confidentiality clause,“ CNN reports.

“Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire who has become President-elect Donald Trump’s ‘first buddy,’ appeared to publicly pressure Trump on economic policy and a key Cabinet appointment Saturday,” the Washington Post reports.

“In a Saturday morning post on X, the social network he owns and runs, Musk praised a foreign leader’s decision to cut tariffs — the same import taxes that Trump wants to raise to the highest level in a century.”

“Several hours later, Musk posted that Howard Lutnick, Trump’s co-transition chair, would be a better choice than hedge fund executive Scott Bessent for treasury secretary.”

Wall Street Journal: Messy fight for Trump’s Treasury chief spills into public.

Dan Balz: “The opening phase of President-elect Donald Trump’s second trip to the White House has been nothing like the first. What this portends for the coming four years is exactly what Trump pledged in the campaign: disruption and retribution.”

Peter Baker: “Somehow disruption doesn’t begin to cover it. Upheaval might be closer. Revolution maybe. In less than two weeks since being elected again, Donald Trump has embarked on a new campaign to shatter the institutions of Washington as no incoming president has in his lifetime.”

New York Times: “Democrats, and even some Republicans, worry that these nominees for top positions in government are inexperienced, conflicted and potentially reckless. But in interviews with almost two dozen Trump voters around the country, his supporters were more likely to describe them as mavericks and reformers recruited to deliver on Mr. Trump’s promise to shake up Washington.”

“The Trump transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officers who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and exploring whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement,“ NBC News reports.

“Officials working on the transition are considering creating a commission to investigate the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, including gathering information about who was directly involved in the decision-making for the military, how it was carried out, and whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as serious as treason.”