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Elon Musk on stage before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY on Sunday, October 27, 2024.

The Washington Post | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Elon Musk spent $44 billion to buy Twitter, now known as X, and at least $130 million to help get Donald Trump elected president.

It’s a combination that’s paid off handsomely. Since Trump’s victory last week, Musk is about $70 billion richer on paper.

Most of Musk’s wealth is wrapped up in his holdings of Tesla, and in the four trading days since the election, the electric vehicle maker’s stock has soared by about 39%. That’s lifted the company’s market cap well past $1 trillion.

Musk’s net worth has swelled to $320 billion, according to Forbes, putting him close to $90 billion ahead of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, the world’s second-richest person. Ellison, a close friend of Musk’s and a former Tesla board member, is a longtime Republican donor who’s seen his own Trump bump, with Oracle’s 10% increase lifting his net worth by about $20 billion.

For Musk, getting Trump back into the White House became another full-time job. He funded a swing-state operation to register right-leaning voters, and he led rallies as a surrogate for his favored candidate. He started $1 million giveaways to registered voters who signed one of his America PAC petitions, and he faced a lawsuit over running an illegal lottery in Pennsylvania.

Musk also used X, the social media platform he acquired in 2022, to constantly tout his support for Trump while frequently spreading misinformation about his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as topics like immigration and voter fraud.

Now, Musk is trying to make sure he cashes in on his investments.

After the election last week, Musk briefly joined Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, NBC News reported. Other outlets, including The New York Times and ABC, have reported that Musk has been weighing in on staffing decisions for the next administration, and he’s spent a lot of time since the election at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Brendan Carr, who is likely to be Trump’s choice to run the Federal Communications Commission, is seen as a longstanding Musk ally.

Elon Musk's big bet on Trump is a home run for Tesla, says Wedbush's Dan Ives

Musk ran a straw poll on X for his 200-million plus followers asking who should be Senate majority leader, and he’s personally endorsed Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott for the position. He also reposted a comment from Trump about the need for the majority leader to support recess appointments for his nominees so they don’t need Senate confirmation.

“Without recess appointments, it will take two years or more to confirm the new administration!” Musk wrote.

Benefiting Musk’s empire

Musk has long sought to reduce regulatory authority so that he can eliminate impediments to his sprawling business empire, which includes Tesla and X, as well as defense contractor SpaceX, artificial intelligence startup xAI, brain computer interface company Neuralink and tunneling venture Boring Co.

Those companies are currently embroiled in a range of probes and lawsuits from federal agencies pertaining to matters including alleged securities law violations, workplace safety, labor and civil rights violations, violations of federal environmental laws, consumer fraud and vehicle safety defects.

Given the executive branch’s outsized control over federal regulatory bodies, Musk can look forward to regulators and intelligence agencies winding down some or all of the 19 known ongoing federal investigations and lawsuits against Tesla, SpaceX and X.

Tesla's stock climb starting to price in robotaxi opportunity, says Deepwater's Gene Munster

“He’s got the golden touch right now and has the ear,” said Deepwater Asset Management’s Gene Munster, a longtime Tesla bull, in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday.

In addition to Tesla, SpaceX is also a “clear beneficiary” of a Trump presidency, Munster said. He added that xAI could be rewarded as the new administration considers AI regulations.

“I’m stretched to try to find out how this could play out negative for Elon,” Munster said.

Musk didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk owns 411.06 million Tesla shares, as of the latest filings, and about 304 million performance-based options. In January, Judge Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Chancery Court voided Musk’s historic pay package from 2018 that included the options, calling it “unfathomable” in part because Musk controlled the board. Shareholders then voted in June to retroactively ratify the package. McCormick has said a final ruling on whether to restore Musk’s compensation will come soon.

Musk and Ellison aren’t the only two billionaire tech executives to see a post-election windfall.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has added about $4.5 billion to his net worth since Trump’s victory. Coinbase shares soared 20% on Monday, bringing their gains since Tuesday to 67%.

The crypto exchange was a major contributor to pro-crypto candidates up and down the ballot, largely through a PAC called Fairshake. Most of its preferred candidates were victorious, setting the stage for the likelihood of a more favorable regulatory environment for the industry.

That’s a win for Tesla as well. At the end of the third quarter, the company reported “digital assets” with a fair value of $729 million. Cryptocurrencies have rallied since the election, with bitcoin jumping about 29% to a record of over $88,000 on Monday.

WATCH: Elon Musk intimately involved in shaping Trump’s government

Elon Musk is intimately involved in shaping Trump's government, says Axios' Mike Allen

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Tesla shares climb as Musk pledges to be ‘super focused’ on companies ahead of Starship launch

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Tesla shares climb as Musk pledges to be 'super focused' on companies ahead of Starship launch

Elon Musk listens as reporters ask U.S. President Donald Trump and South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa questions during a press availability in the Oval Office at the White House on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

Tesla shares gained about 5% on Tuesday after CEO Elon Musk over the weekend reiterated his intent to home in on his businesses ahead of the latest SpaceX rocket launch.

The billionaire wrote in a post to his social media platform X that he needs to be “super focused” on X, artificial intelligence company xAI and Tesla as they launch “critical technologies” on the heels of a temporary outage.

“As evidenced by the uptime issues this week, major operational improvements need to be made,” he wrote, adding that he would return to “spending 24/7” at work. “The failover redundancy should have worked, but did not.”

An outage over the weekend briefly shuttered the social media platform formerly known as Twitter for thousands of users, according to DownDetector. Earlier in the week, the platform suffered a data center outage. X has suffered a series of outages since Musk purchased the platform in 2022.

Read more CNBC tech news

Musk has previously indicated plans to step away from his political work and prioritize his businesses.

During Tesla’s April earnings call he said that he would “significantly” reduce his time running President Donald Trump‘s Department of Government Efficiency.

In the last election cycle, Musk devoted time and billions of dollars to political causes and toward electing Trump in 2024. However, a story over the weekend from the Washington Post, citing sources familiar with the matter, said that Musk has grown disillusioned with politics and wants to return to managing his businesses.

Last week, Musk said in an interview at the Qatar Economic Forum that he planned to spend “a lot less” on campaign donations going forward.

The comments from Musk precede SpaceX’s Starship rocket Tuesday evening. Pressure is on for the company after two Starship rockets exploded in January and March.

Ahead of the launch, Musk announced an all hands livestream on X at 1 p.m.

Tesla is still facing fallout from Musk’s political foray, with protests at showrooms and other brand damage.

In April, Tesla sold 7,261 cars in Europe, down 49% from last year, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.

WATCH: Elon Musk: We have seen a major rebound in demand

Elon Musk: We have seen a major rebound in demand

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Trump advisor Hassett says ‘we don’t want to harm’ Apple with iPhone tariffs

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Trump advisor Hassett says 'we don't want to harm' Apple with iPhone tariffs

NEC Director Kevin Hassett on Trump's iPhone tariff threat: In the end, we don't want to harm Apple

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Tuesday that the Trump administration does not want to “harm Apple” with tariffs.

“Everybody is trying to make it seem like it’s a catastrophe if there’s a tiny little tariff on them right now, to try to negotiate down the tariffs,” Hassett told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday. “In the end, we’ll see what happens, we’ll see what the update is, but we don’t want to harm Apple.”

Hassett’s comments come after President Donald Trump said in a social media post that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the U.S. Apple has historically manufactured its products in foreign countries including China, India and Vietnam.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump wrote in the post. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. Thank your for your attention to this matter!”

By some estimates, a U.S.-made iPhone could cost as much as $3,500.

Read more CNBC tech news

“If you think that Apple has a factory some place that’s got a set number of iPhones that it produces and it needs to sell them no matter what, then Apple will bear those tariffs, not consumers, because it’s an elastic supply,” Hassett said.

Hasset’s comments continue the administration’s push to pressure companies to shoulder the cost burden of Trump’s tariffs, instead of raising prices for consumers.

Earlier this month, Trump told retail giant Walmart to “EAT THE TARIFFS” after the company warned it would have to pass those added costs on.

Shares of Apple were up more than 1% Tuesday.

Apple did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

WATCH: NEC Director Kevin Hassett on Trump’s iPhone tariff threat: In the end, we don’t want to harm Apple

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Ambience announces OpenAI-powered medical coding model that outperforms physicians

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Ambience announces OpenAI-powered medical coding model that outperforms physicians

Dr. Priti Patel, CMIO at John Muir Health, uses Ambience before starting a patient encounter.

Courtesy of Ambience Healthcare

Artificial intelligence startup Ambience Healthcare on Tuesday announced a new medical coding model that outperforms doctors by 27%.

Ambience uses AI to draft clinical notes in real-time as doctors consensually record their visits with patients. The company used tools from OpenAI to build the new model.

The startup is part of a fiercely competitive market that has taken off as health-care executives search for solutions to help reduce staff burnout and daunting administrative workloads. 

The company’s new model can listen to patient encounters and identify ICD-10 codes, which are internationally standardized classifications for different diseases and conditions. There are about 70,000 ICD-10 codes that are regularly updated and used to facilitate billing and other reporting processes in health care. 

Ambience said its new ICD-10 model can reduce billing mistakes and help clinicians and professional coders work more efficiently. The model notched a “27% relative improvement over physician benchmarks,” according to a release on Tuesday.  

“We’re not replacing doctors or coders,” Brendan Fortuner, Ambience’s head of engineering, told CNBC in an interview. “What we’re doing is we’re liberating them from administration, and we’re fixing mistakes that help make health care better, safer, more cost-effective.”

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Documenting ICD-10 codes has traditionally been a labor-intensive task in health care, but it’s a crucial way to track outcomes, mortalities and morbidities in a standardized way, said Dr. Will Morris, the chief medical officer of Ambience.

“If you think about it from a data perspective, it’s how you can compare and contrast clinician A to B, or health system A to B,” Morris said in an interview. “It’s the cornerstone for quality.”

Ambience’s technology is used at more than 40 health-care organizations, like Cleveland Clinic and UCSF Health. It has raised more than $100 million, according to PitchBook, from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz and the OpenAI Startup Fund. 

The company is reportedly seeking fresh capital at a valuation of over $1 billion, according to a report from The Information. Ambience declined to comment on the report. 

Ambience trained its new AI model using OpenAI’s reinforcement fine-tuning technology. This technology allows companies to tune OpenAI’s best reasoning models for very specific domains, like health care. 

To validate the model, Ambience tested it against a “gold panel” set of labels, the company said. The labels were established by a group of expert clinicians who evaluated complex clinical cases and came to an agreement on what the right codes were. 

Ambience’s AI platform for compliant documentation, CDI, and coding.

Courtesy of Ambience Healthcare

The company then recruited 18 different board-certified doctors and compared their performance on ICD-10 coding accuracy to the model’s performance. That comparison showed the Ambience technology performed 27% better than the physician baseline. 

“It shows for the first time that an AI system can actually surpass clinician experts at a very, very important administrative task, especially in coding,” Fortuner said. 

Ambience already has similar capabilities available for other medical codes like Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes, and Fortuner said it’s exploring how to tackle other areas like prior authorizations, utilization management and clinical trial matching. 

The company’s new ICD-10 model will roll out to customers over the summer.

“Getting it right at the point of care is a fundamental change,” Morris said.

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