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US president-elect Donald Trump has given a job to the world's richest person, Elon Musk.

Musk who is a technology businessman and a billionaire, has been picked to lead a new "Department of Government Efficiency" (Doge) when Donald Trump takes charge as president in January.

Trump says the role will advise on government cost-cutting, slashing "excess regulations" and "cut wasteful" spending.

President-elect Trump explained that Musk will work alongside another businessman, Vivek Ramaswamy, and that Doge would not be an official government department.

Critics say Elon Musk's appointment could benefit the businessman - as his companies receive money through valuable contracts with the US government and he's also expected to have a strong influence on the decision-making in Donald Trump's administration.

Elon Musk's rocket firm SpaceX regularly works with US space agency, Nasa and currently has more than $8bn-worth (£6.3bn) of ongoing contracts with the US government.

Meanwhile, his electric car company Tesla is facing investigations from numerous government agencies over issues such as the safety of its self-driving features. His plans to cut regulation in his new role could affect these investigations.

Elon Musk has repeatedly criticised regulations for holding back his companies, advances in technology and his future ambitions, including his plans for people to eventually live on Mars.

Christopher Phelps, a professor of modern US political history, says Elon Musk's new role is full of "conflict of interests" - which is when an individual's personal interests could influence their decision making in their job.

Elon Musk "stands to benefit personally from a lot of the deregulation that he touts," says professor Phelps.

Who is Elon Musk?

Not only is Elon Musk in charge of electric car company Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, he is also the boss of social media company, X (formerly Twitter).

With a fortune estimated to be $290bn, he is the richest person in the world.

For a long time Mr Musk, who was born in South Africa and became a US citizen in 2002, described himself as "half-Democrat, half-Republican" - the two main political parties in the United States.

He says he voted for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and also Joe Biden, all of them Democrats, in previous US elections.

But in recent years he's voiced his support for Donald Trump, who is a Republican, officially backing him for president earlier this year.

He appeared alongside Donald Trump at Republican political events in the run-up to the election, and raised millions of dollars to help fund Donald Trump's successful election campaign.

In the final days of the presidential election race, Musk spoke to voters across the state of Pennsylvania, a key area that had become the focus for Donald Trump and Kamala Harris' campaigns.

He also posted support for Mr Trump regularly on X, saying that only Trump could "save" American democracy.

Why has Donald Trump given Elon Musk a job?

Since winning the US presidential election, Donald Trump has been putting together his top team to help him while he is president.

Musk was tipped for a role in the administration during the election campaign and Trump has so far rewarded those who offered their loyal support.

The appointment fulfils a promise he made to the tech billionaire after he endorsed him in the race for the White House.

“I don’t think I can get him full-time because he’s a little bit busy sending rockets up and all the things he does,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan in September. “He said the waste in this country is crazy. And we’re going to get Elon Musk to be our cost-cutter.”

Thomas Gift, a political science professor and director of the Centre on US Politics at University College London, said: "Trump is looking to surround himself with loyalists in his new administration, and there’s no-one who’s been more loyal than Musk since he announced his support for Trump.

"Not only did Musk go 'all in' in supporting Trump personally and financially during the campaign, but he’s also evolved into a trusted adviser on topics as diverse as technology policy to the war in Ukraine."

In business, Musk has become known for his approach to cost-cutting - he got rid of thousands of jobs at Twitter, now X, after buying it.

The billionaire recently called for at least two trillion dollars worth of cuts to US government spending, nearly a third of its budget.

He has also frequently suggested the number of government employees could be significantly reduced.

Meanwhile Vivek Ramaswamy - the other businessman in charge of Doge - has put forward plans to scrap a number of federal departments including the FBI (the Federal Bureau of Investigation) - which is in charge of intelligence inside the US.

In a statement following the appointment, Donald Trump said that Musk and Ramaswamy will work to provide a "smaller government with more efficiency".

Musk added that his appointment “will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in government waste, which is a lot of people."