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TL;DR: Live stream Belgium vs. Italy in the UEFA Nations League for free on RaiPlay. Access this free streaming site from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

Does anyone really care about the UEFA Nations League? That's the question that fans around Europe are asking themselves when they miss out on domestic competitions in favor of these international fixtures. We're not sure whether they really matter in the grand scheme of things, but Belgium vs. Italy certainly sounds like an exciting matchup on paper.

If you want to watch Belgium vs. Italy in the UEFA Nations League for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Belgium vs. Italy?

Belgium vs. Italy in the UEFA Nations League kicks off at 7:45 p.m. GMT on Nov. 14. This fixture takes place at the King Baudouin Stadium.

How to watch Belgium vs. Italy for free

Belgium vs. Italy in the UEFA Nations League is available to live stream for free on RaiPlay in Italy.

If you're abroad for this fixture, you might need to use a VPN to unblock RaiPlay. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in Italy, meaning you can access free live streams on RaiPlay from anywhere in the world.

Access a free live stream of Belgium vs. Italy by following these simple steps:

1. Subscribe to a streaming-friendly VPN (like ExpressVPN)

2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

3. Open up the app and connect to a server in Italy

4. Visit RaiPlay

5. Live stream Belgium vs. Italy for free from anywhere in the world

Opens in a new window Credit: ExpressVPN ExpressVPN (1-Year Subscription + 3 Months Free) $99.95 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee) Get Deal

The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but most do offer free-trials or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can watch Belgium vs. Italy in the UEFA Nations League without actually spending anything. This clearly isn't a long-term solution, but it does give you enough time to stream select UEFA Nations League fixtures before recovering your investment.

What is the best VPN for RaiPlay?

ExpressVPN is the best choice for bypassing geo-restrictions to stream live sport on RaiPlay, for a number of reasons:

• Servers in 105 countries including Italy

• Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

• Strict no-logging policy so your data is secure

• Fast connection speeds free from throttling

• Up to eight simultaneous connections

• 30-day money-back guarantee

A one-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $99.95 and includes an extra three months for free — 49% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Stream Belgium vs. Italy in the UEFA Nations League for free with ExpressVPN.

The hardest thing about picking a gift card may seem like choosing just one retailer from the many choices.

After all, which gift card will truly delight your tech-loving best friend—Amazon or Apple? What about the co-worker who loves to dine out? Should you go with DoorDash or a national chain like Olive Garden?

While you may be focused on personalizing your pick, there's something you may have overlooked entirely: the possibility that someone has already collected the data they need from the back of that card to steal the money you're about to put on it.

SEE ALSO: 'Nobody is immune': Don't fall for a Bitcoin ATM scam

The problem with this very real nationwide scam is that it sounds improbable.

But thieves, who are often members of organized criminal networks, go into stores with gift card displays, pocket numerous cards, and tamper with the packaging in order to steal the barcode and PIN that recipients use to activate their card. Sometimes the fraud happens within the store itself, when a cashier swaps out your paid card for a dud during the activation process.

Either way, when the recipient attempts to access their gifted funds, the balance is confusingly zero.

The exact amount of gift card fraud is unclear, but if even one percent of the annual $570 billion Americans load on to gift cards each year is scammed, that could put consumer losses at more than $5 billion, according to an estimate provided to ProPublica.

Aside from purchasing a digital or electronic gift card directly from the retailer or brand, there is no guaranteed way to avoid becoming a victim of gift card draining. But practicing these expert tips can add layers of protection:

1. Inspect the gift card before buying it.

Some scammers have gotten so good at tampering with gift cards that consumers don't know the difference. While legislation passed in Maryland this year could ultimately improve gift card security nationwide, the products are still vulnerable to tampering.

That's why the Federal Trade Commission recommends making sure that a card still has its protective sticker, and that it doesn't appear to have been manipulated. The PIN number on the back also should not be visible. If you suspect a card has been tampered with, give it to a store employee and choose a different one.

2. Keep a copy of the gift card and the store receipt.

The FTC recommends taking a picture of both the gift card and your purchase receipt. The card information, plus the transaction data on the receipt, can help you report fraud to both the gift card company and the store.

The FTC maintains contact information for major gift card companies. If you don't see contact information for your card on the FTC's list, try using the details provided on the card itself. Report it to the FTC if the card issuer cannot be reached or refuses to speak with you.

3. Buy gift cards from trustworthy merchants.

You might be tempted to buy a gift card from an online auction site or other third party, but their offerings may be fake or stolen. For extra peace of mind, Jory MacKay, head of editorial content for the online safety product Aura, recommends buying gift cards directly from the brand's website.

4. Purchase a gift card using a credit card with fraud protection.

If you have a credit card with fraud-protection benefits, MacKay suggests using it for a gift card purchase. That's because credit cards typically offer better security for unauthorized charges and may come with $0 fraud liability if you've been deceived by a scam. Be sure to keep the receipt as it will have details you may need to share with the credit card company.

5. Consider buying multiple gift cards instead of one card for a large amount.

Sure it can be satisfying to hand a loved one a gift card for an eye-popping value, but purchasing a number of smaller cards instead may be the wiser move, says MacKay. This way, your loss may be minimal if you unknowingly bought a drained card.

6. Register the card online, if possible.

You can register some gift cards online, which typically offers more protection and options to freeze the card or track the balance, says MacKay. It's also easier to report a drained card when it's been registered.

7. Quickly use the card's balance.

When you hand the card to the recipient, you might gently encourage them to spend the balance sooner than later, and register it if that's not already been done.

MacKay says unused cards are more vulnerable to potential theft and hacking.

If the card you gifted has a balance of zero, MacKay recommends first checking to make sure you have the receipt.

Then, contact the retailer or card issuer. They can help you determine whether the card was drained or tampered with prior to purchase. MacKay says that trusted stores and brands are likely to replace or refund the card, especially if you're quick to report the problem.

"The key is to act fast—getting on top of the issue early can help make sure your recipient gets the full value of their gift," MacKay says.

Elon Musk has certainly emerged victorious this past week, post-election.

However, Musk and his social media platform X are not exactly winning on the mobile app charts. X competitors Bluesky and Threads are surging in popularity on Apple's App Store in the week following the election.

SEE ALSO: Stephen King responds to rumor that Elon Musk kicked him off X

Bluesky appears to be the big winner, as many users have evidently decided to flee Musk's X — often pointing to his campaigning for Trump and using X as a campaign tool as the reason. Bluesky is now the number 1 free app in the App Store in the U.S. The X-alternative social media platform has also just surpassed 15 million users as approximately 100,000 people have signed up per day since the election.

Threads, which is tightly integrated with Instagram and owned by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, is currently in second place on the App Store. Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, is in a distant 27th place on the charts. A significant number of X users are clearly looking for an alternative to the Musk-owned platform.

The App Store top charts rankings as of November 13, 2024. Credit: Apple

Musk's App Store interest

While Musk might not lose any sleep over this after winning significant influence with the incoming Trump administration, App Store rankings have been a bit of an obsession for the owner of X.

Musk has frequently boasted about X hitting #1 in the News category on the U.S. and international App Store charts since the election. It should be noted that X doesn't really have much broad competition in the News category, as most apps in that section belong to traditional media outlets publishers like the New York Times or Fox News. 

Aside from X and Reddit, most social media platforms categorize their iOS apps in the much more competitive Social Networking category. A first place ranking in that category translates to a first place ranking overall in the entire App Store, as Bluesky currently holds both distinctions. (For another example, Meta's WhatsApp iOS app is in third place in the Social Networking category and then in 8th place among the top charts.)

X, however, holds a first place ranking in the News category on the App Store, which only translates to 27th place overall. 

There's nothing worse than realizing your external hard drive has been lost or stolen, when it contains sensitive personal or company data that could get you in trouble should it fall into the wrong hands. The best solution is to encrypt the drive, and for Windows and macOS users, the process is nice and simple.

In most modern Windows PC games, you might notice that you have the choice to run a game in "exclusive fullscreen" or "borderless window" modes. While it might seem that this makes no differences, picking the right mode for your needs is important, and sometimes can even solve issues in specific games.

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more."

That's the apparently immortal line from Network, Paddy Chayefsky's acerbic Oscar-winning masterpiece from 1976. Deranged newsreader Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch in the movie, and Bryan Cranston in a theater version) urges his audience to scream it out of their windows, and his TV network capitalizes on the resulting outrage. Nearly 50 years later, Beale looks ever more the mad prophet — not just of the airwaves, but of social media.

Indeed, Beale's line might be the only unifying scream across both sides of the political gulf, one that opened ever wider online between the 2016 and 2024 U.S. presidential elections. We don't even agree on basic facts any more. What we do agree on is that we're mad as hell about the other side, and we're not going to take this nonsense from them one minute longer. Let's find someone being wrong on the internet and dunk on them!

SEE ALSO: X rival Bluesky sees more than 700,000 new users after the U.S. election

But in the wake of the 2024 election, it's time to quit, even as we steel ourselves for the actual IRL fights that lie ahead. Because here's the thing we forgot about being Howard Beale: It's the opposite of being politically effective. It can leave you sad as hell, not to mention frazzled and sick, and you shouldn't take it anymore.

The newsreader ended up as a conspiracy-addled cypher, his unfocused cri de coeur at used by a media conglomerate three times over. The network tore the guardrails of decency off Beale's newscast, turning it into a rant-fueled variety show in which Beale literally collapsed every night. It persuaded Beale to start spouting its owner's vision of inhuman capitalism. And in the end — well, no spoilers if you haven't seen it, but let's just say Beale's contract is terminated with extreme prejudice.

If we are to avoid becoming a world of a billion Howard Beales, then the first thing we have to do is stop the screaming — and the social media doomscrolling that goes with it. It's not just that every click and thumb-flick of your feed is being monetized by billionaires who have already padded their wealth significantly thanks to a highly divisive election.

It's that doomscrolling is paralyzing, and the one thing your causes need is for you to not be paralyzed.

How I stopped worrying and learned to leave social media

Towards the end of the first Trump administration, I delved into the history of self-care as a necessary political act. The TL;DR was this: Philosophers and activists from Socrates to Audre Lorde have been trying to tell us what self-care isn't (retreats, spas, champagne, Instagram glow-ups) and what it is (time that feeds the soul, which in turn makes you a better citizen, able to use your strength to help the underprivileged in any society).

But, as I realized sending that story to friends who were burned out or terrified by the 2024 election results, I hadn't exactly been take my own advice. Twitter was my social media outrage drug of choice, one I persuaded myself I needed for work even as I largely abandoned Facebook.

The end result: I too had gotten mad as hell. Even in the wake of a billionaire buying it and turning it into X, an echo chamber that boosts hard-right voices including his own, even as I posted much less as a result, I persuaded myself of the importance of bearing witness to the craziness in all my spare moments.

Daily I enlarged my own echo chamber — one that had convinced itself that all the wrong voices on the other side were heading for a fall.

I quit Twitter (in common with Stephen King, I still call it that) on election night, in the same way one might quit a TV show that has gone on past its time. I could see the next few episodes with Cassandra-like clarity. Twitter/X would become a dunking machine. There would be a lot of recrimination in the echo chambers of the left, a lot of woulda coulda shoulda. Keyboard warriors and bots on the winning side would be emboldened; their victims would need defending.

Mad as hell, projecting wider fears on the smallest targets, everyone from every online constituency would be highly motivated to dunk on each other for the mildest offense. Nothing, not even the doomscrolling bot that gained many users in Musk's early days, can save us from the pointless time-suck of getting mad online, that distraction from the real work of grieving and moving on.

We're all Howard Beales now. Credit: Bettman via Getty Images

In the week since I quit cold turkey, I have felt the missing limb of Twitter less than I expected. Muscle memory made me tap the X icon on my phone a couple times, so I moved it to the back of my news folder; no performative deleting necessary. Maybe someone somewhere would have had a hollow laugh at the would-be tweet that bubbled up in my head post-election: this is like if the time traveler who changed the future by stepping on a butterfly went back and stomped on it again.

But is that really the best use of my time now, throwing nerdy political posts against the wall to see if they stick?

To my surprise, I haven't felt uninformed or disengaged. The news has come to my inbox anyway, thanks to a bunch of newsletters with a high signal-to-noise ratio, and a network of activated friends that transcends social media. I do not miss the endless dissection of each announcement from the incoming administration. My blood pressure, which hit new highs on November 5, has come down steadily ever since.

Shorn of the endless scroll, I spent more time in the real world. My modest donation to an organization that funds education for girls around the world will, in the long run, make more of a difference than Ray Bradbury reference tweets.

Bluesky has seen a massive uptick in adoption post-election. My account is ready to go; depending on how 2025 plays out, perhaps I'll join the Twitter refugees there. But not before my self-care regimen has become more soulful: more deep reading, less surface tweeting, all the better to meet the needs of a future filled with storm clouds.

Retreating into books doesn't mean you're not meeting the needs of the moment. Quite the opposite: when society takes a dystopian turn, dystopian novels can provide effective frames for those who wish to change it. To quote the title of an excellent 2024 nonfiction book on the subject of psychological warfare: Stories are Weapons.

Which brings us back to the Howard Beale story we've been telling ourselves for five decades, but need to quit now. With a little tweaking, the fictional newsman's rant — which helped yield our 21st century world — can lead us to a better one:

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. There's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do and there's no end to it. We sit in the house and slowly the world we're living in — on our phones — is getting smaller. I don't want you to protest, I don't want you to riot, I don't want you to write to your Congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about depression, and the fact that people don't understand inflation, and the Russians, and the criminal now entering the White House.

All I know is that first, you've got to stop getting mad. You've got to say "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!" Turn off your social media right now, turn it off. Feel your grief inside and declare: "I'm as sad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Game developers need to make money in exchange for the work they do, and usually I'm happy to give it to them! However, when it comes to paid cosmetics in games, that's a line I just won't cross.

Do you love your wife? Have you commissioned a statue of her? Have you recorded an acoustic version of the breakthrough crunk song playing on your first date? Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has.

"'Get Low' was playing when I first met Priscilla at a college party, so every year we listen to it on our dating anniversary. This year I worked with @tpain on our own version of this lyrical masterpiece. Sound on for the track and also available on Spotify. Love you P ❤️" Zuckerberg wrote on Instagram along with a carousel of photos of him and his wife, Priscilla, and pictures of him and T-Pain in the studio, presumably working on the track.

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg commissioned a statue of his wife, Priscilla Chan, and the internet kinda likes it View this post on Instagram

He posted a few videos of her reacting to the acoustic song on his Instagram story, in which she mostly just laughs. In a video Priscilla posted on her Instagram Story, Mark asks, "Is that the most romantic thing I've done or what?"

"It's so romantic," she says. "Twenty-one years later I can't get quite as low, but it brings back a lot of fun memories."

You can even listen to the song on Spotify. (It's listed under Zuck and T-Pain's duo moniker, Z-Pain.)

Zuckerberg has many flaws but his public admiration of his wife is not one of them. It feels so nice to see a tech giant like their partner that it almost doesn't matter if it's a PR strategy or not.

Does he love his wife so loudly because he loves his wife or because it makes him look good to the public? We will probably never really know. The man is worth $200 billion. If he wanted to, he could have forced a reunion of Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz to preform a private rendition of the song. But he chose to make this single public.

Smart home doorbells are awesome in general, but they are a pain to wire up. Which is why I prefer to use my Ring doorbell on battery power. That means having to charge it every few months, but with a solar attachment, I almost never need to plug it in.

Scam calls are incredibly common, but Google has a new plan to detect them in real time using on-device AI models. It's coming first to Google Pixel phones.

Google has announced a security update to its Google Play Protect service. The company will introduce live threat detection with real-time alerts for Android users.

Connections is a game from the New York Times that challenges you to find the association between words. It sounds easy, but it isn'tConnections categories can be almost anything, and they're usually quite specific. If you need a hand getting the answers, we've got you covered.

Want to install Linux? It's an easier process than you might think! You can even try Linux on your PC before you install it. If you don't like it, just reboot and you'll be back to Windows. Here's how to get started with Linux.

ChatGPT isn't as useful when it's confined to a web browser and a simple chatbox. Stardock's DesktopGPT app brings the chatbot to your Windows desktop, and it's now out of beta.

Paint.NET 5.1 is now available to download. The update includes new effects, support for HDR and Wide Color Gamut displays, and robust color management, to name but a few.

SAVE $200: As of Nov. 13, the M2 iPad Air with 512GB and WiFi is down to just $899 at Amazon. That's 18% in savings and its lowest price to date.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple iPad Air (M2, 512GB, WiFi) $899.00 at Amazon
$1,099.00 Save $200.00 Get Deal

There's really no point in sitting around and waiting for Black Friday to score a good great deal on an iPad. On this random Wednesday in November, we're already seeing a record-low price on the 13-inch M2 iPad Air.

Released earlier this year, the M2 iPad Air has seen many discounts over the last six months — including on Prime Day and Prime Big Deal Days. But none have been as impressive as today's $200 discount. As of Nov. 13, you can grab the 13-inch M2 iPad Air with 512GB of storage and WiFi connectivity for just $899 instead of $1,099. That's an 18% discount and the lowest price on record by around $100. There's just one catch: The discount is only available on the purple model.

Aesthetically, not much changed between the 2022 iPad Air and the 2024 iPad Air, but internally the M2 chip gives it an impressive upgrade. As Mashable's Kim Gedeon noted in her review, "The M2 chip brings sweet energy efficiency and a performance uptick." Its zippy performance allows it to keep up with the big dogs, including some of our favorite laptops — like the Asus Zenbook Duo. Not to mention, its battery life lasted three hours longer than expected when we tested it (13 hours versus the promised 10).

It's not going to blow you away as much as the iPad Pro, but it's not meant to. It's also much easier on your wallet. If you don't mind the color purple, snag it on sale for just $899 while the deal sticks around.

Everyone online is "crashing out" all of a sudden.

Well, not literally — though, plenty of people actually are crashing out. But, for one reason or another, the term "crash out" or "crashing out" is everywhere this week.

For the unfamiliar, crashing out boils down to losing it. As Urban Dictionary puts it, to crash out is to "get really mad or upset; lose all your self-control." It can also mean that you're almost willingly entering a situation — or acting a certain way — that will prove harmful in the long term.

If you've been online lately, you've likely seen people talking about crashing out. Go on X, the app formerly known as Twitter, and you'll see recent, super-viral posts using the term crash out.

Tweet may have been deleted Tweet may have been deleted Tweet may have been deleted

Go on TikTok and it's even more prominent. Every fifth post, it seems people are talking about crashing out in one form or another.

There are viral crash out posts about heartbreak.

Or for teaching negative people in your life a lesson.

Or teachers not knowing why their kids are saying it.

To be clear: This is not some new phrase.Younger folks, especially, have been using the term for quite some time. But, at least to my eye, it's ramped up in the past few weeks.

Why might that be? Well, for one, there's quite a lot to crash out about these days. While young voters did swing toward President-elect Donald Trump in 2024, the majority of voters under 30 still voted for Vice President Kamala Harris. Those young Harris voters, women especially, might be feeling like it's a time for crashing out.

SEE ALSO: From yap to pookie, 2024's most viral internet slang defined

This is also the time of year when seasonal depression might hit — the days just got shorter — and, for whatever reason, it's also a common time of year for breakups. Nothing seems to inspire a "crash out" more than a bad breakup.

But, in general, the internet these days seems to really latch onto words and phrases. And it might just be "crash out's" time. Back in August, when the entire internet was very demure, I wrote about TikTok's propensity for shaping language.

I wrote at the time:

"Think of it this way: in your group of friends — especially during high school or college — you probably had buzzwords and shorthand that only your group understood. You spent so much time together that you developed an internal language. TikTok’s influence on our word usage is similar, only now the friend group is essentially everyone with an internet connection."

Right now, that collective group is latching onto crashing out. The phrase, though not new, is a trend of sorts. As Mashable's Elena Cavender has covered, the internet cycles through this slang with relative rapidity. So right now we're all crashing out — but that likely won't last.

Google’s Gemini AI might be on the verge of a major upgrade, bringing conversational capabilities directly to your files, photos, and recordings — similar to what we’ve seen from OpenAI's ChatGPT.

SEE ALSO: Google Gemini app may be coming to iPhone soon — here's what we know

Gemini is Google’s latest answer to multimodal AI, letting users upload various media types — images, audio, and video — for analysis and interaction. And like ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode, Gemini comes with a feature called Gemini Live, designed to make AI interactions feel more natural and human through voice-based chats.

According to Android Authority, a recent teardown of an unreleased beta version of the Google app revealed code suggesting that Gemini Live could soon "talk about attachments" uploaded by users. While the team wasn’t able to activate the feature, the code hints at an experience that may allow users to ask questions and get insights directly related to their files.

Although there's no official release date for this feature, Google's recent soft launch of a standalone Gemini app for iPhone users — spotted in the Philippines — signals a ramp-up in their AI offerings.

UPDATE: Nov. 13, 2024, 1:01 p.m. EST This article was updated to reflect Musk's recent appointment as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency.

Donald Trump may have won the 2024 presidential election, but Elon Musk may end up being the bigger winner than the soon-to-be 47th President of the United States.

Musk bet big on Trump and spent millions to back him. However, Musk wasn't just doing this out of the kindness of his heart. Many of Musk's companies. including Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), xAI, The Boring Company, and Neuralink, heavily rely on government contracts and subsidies. They have made billions in federal dollars.

Musk's bet has paid off. Since the election, Musk has been a regular figure in Trump's orbit. He reportedly made further inroads with Trump and deepened his influence in terms of making policy and appointment suggestions. Musk was even on a phone call made after the election between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.

But, how will Musk play a prominent role in politics and the Trump administration while still running his businesses? It appears that Musk will assemble an "A-Team" to act as his mouthpiece in government. 

SEE ALSO: Trump appoints Elon Musk to DOGE, a new U.S. government department Musk's A-Team

"America’s A team is usually building companies in the private sector," Musk posted on X just days after Trump's electoral win last Tuesday. "Once in a long time, reforming government is important enough that the A team allocates time to government. This is that time."

Tweet may have been deleted

Musk appears to be positioning himself to encourage Trump to bring his trusted employees and allies into the administration, aiming to secure favorable outcomes for his ventures.

According to the Financial Times, some of the likely names that Musk will float include individuals like Steve Davis, president of The Boring Company, Musk's tunneling company that is ranked as one of the worst for workplace safety. Davis played an important role with Musk's pro-Trump lobbying group America Pac this year. Davis was also the key figure Musk relied on to cut 80 percent of then-Twitter's employees shortly after Musk acquired the platform now known as X.

Musk will likely also turn to Omead Afshar, who helped Musk with Twitter layoffs and the cutting of 14,000 jobs at Tesla earlier this year.

Musk's most trusted associate Jared Birchall will likely also play a role in Trump's administration, if Musk has any sway. Birchall has been referred to as Musk's right-hand man and runs his family office while also working directly with Musk's xAI, Neuralink, and The Boring Company. Birchall also played a major role in Musk's Twitter acquisition.

SpaceX may benefit the most

The Musk company with the most to gain from relaxed regulations and favorable government contracts is his space exploration company SpaceX. According to the New York Times, Musk asked Trump to consider SpaceX employees for positions with the Department of Defense, including Senior Vice President for Global Business and Affairs Tim Hughes, former Air Force general and SpaceX advisor Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy, and Senior Director of Government Affairs Mathew Dunn.

While Tesla already benefits from tax credits, Musk's EV company will find itself further wrapped up in regulatory issues as it looks to push the autonomous driving capabilities of its planned robotaxi. While most of these conflicts are at the state level, Musk may look to leverage the federal government to exert pressure on these regulators. Peter Scheutzow, Tesla's head of autopilot and AI, and safety chief Suraj Nagaraj, are also potential Musk-backed candidates for roles within the administration.

And, of course, no list of potential Musk candidates would be complete without his fellow Silicon Valley elites. Venture capitalists and hedge funders like David Sacks, Jason Calacanis, and Bill Ackman have all become more active in pro-Musk politics online and could certainly play a role in a Trump administration. Musk's weapon-tech buddies like Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey could also potentially find a place within Trump's Department of Defense.

Regardless of who Trump picks, things within the U.S. government are looking very good for Elon Musk in the coming years – as long as he stays on Trump's good side.

Department of Government Efficiency

UPDATE: Nov. 13, 2024, 12:04 p.m. EST Just days after this piece was originally published, Trump officially announced the Department of Government Efficiency, headed up by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

In addition to pushing for Trump to choose his appointment recommendations, it appears Musk already got his dream governmental job – a position technically outside of government so he doesn't have to divest from his companies.

The Department of Government Efficiency or "DOGE" isn't a real government agency. It’s a temporary group, with a deadline set by Trump for July 2026, that will provide cost-cutting recommendations aimed at achieving "a smaller Government, with more efficiency and less bureaucracy."

Its hard to imagine that Musk's recommendations won't include slashing regulations and governmental agencies that stand in the way of his companies making even more money.

UPDATE: Nov. 13, 2024, 12:15 p.m. EST This story has been updated with new information about Target's Black Friday sale and early holiday deals.

After hosting a three-day Early Black Friday sale this month, Target has solidified its plans for the year-end shopping holiday. Its official Black Friday sale will run for a full week from Sunday, Nov. 24 to Saturday, Nov. 30, ushering in its "best planned prices of the season – and twice as many Black Friday weekend deals as last year."

The retailer quietly announced the dates and details of this event towards the bottom of a recent press release about its holiday hours. But the weeks ahead will involve a tad more fanfare.

For starters, Target has revived its "Deal of the Day" program through Dec. 24. These one-day doorbusters feature discounts of up to 50% off and exclusives for members of Target Circle, the retailer's free rewards program. Upcoming Deals of the Day apply to Fujifilm camera bundles (Nov. 14), the Tineco Go Flex stick vacuum (Nov. 15), beauty/personal care gift sets (Nov. 16), and the Roborock Qrevo Pro robot vacuum/mop (Nov. 17).

SEE ALSO: When do Black Friday sales start? Early holiday deals are already here.

Target is also dropping batches of weeklong deals every Sunday in November in the lead-up to Black Friday. At the time of writing, the second wave was live with discounts on Christmas decor, select bedding, select board games, Disney apparel and toys, and select floor care (including some Dyson vacuums). Shoppers could also earn a free $15 Target gift card by spending at least $50 on Clorox cleaning supplies.

Target previously announced that Black Friday proper will coincide with its exclusive in-store launch of the official Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book and Swift's The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology on CD and vinyl. Each item will be limited to four per guest. They'll be available online early in the morning on Saturday, Nov. 30 while supplies last.

Target has yet to confirm its plans for Cyber Monday.

Those who plan on perusing Target's seasonal deals should know that its Holiday Price Match Guarantee is now in effect. Under this policy, shoppers can request a price-match for anything bought there through Dec. 24 if it happens to get cheaper post-purchase. Target will also price-match Amazon and Walmart deals on certain items within 14 days of purchase, with certain restrictions.

Target's Black Friday hours

Target stores will open at 6 a.m. local time on Black Friday. They'll be closed on Thanksgiving Day, as they have been for years — that became a permanent company policy in 2021.