Good morning. The rules most Americans built their financial lives around are shifting and today's three stories show exactly where the cracks are forming.

On The Money Today:

  • The government quietly changed 3 retirement rules that could cost you — or pay you

  • Half of Americans earn a decent income and still feel broke — are you one of them? Researchers have a name for it now.

  • Elon Musk just became the world's first trillionaire — and he's warning America is going bankrupt

Let's get into it.

The government quietly changed 3 retirement rules — no press conference, no headlines. One could mean you're owed money you haven't collected. Another could cut your Social Security check in half. Here's what you need to know before it costs you.

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More than half of Americans are doing everything right — steady job, retirement account, health insurance — and still panic when the next bill lands. Researchers call them the "conflicted middle," and the odds are good you're one of them.

The same man who built a $1.2 trillion fortune is publicly warning the U.S. is headed for financial collapse. Whether you believe him or not, the strategy he's actually using with his own money — and what Buffett, Dalio and Dimon say to do right now — is worth paying attention to.

ALSO MAKING THE ROUNDS TODAY

INVESTING: A 27-year-old SpaceX mariner put 10% of her paycheck into company stock for two years — she won't say what it's worth now

NEWS: Billionaires are quietly fleeing California's proposed wealth tax for a small Nevada town on Lake Tahoe where home sales just jumped 650%

NEWS: You are now closer in net worth to Jeff Bezos than Bezos is to Elon Musk — and the math behind that is staggering

INVESTING: Jim Cramer says the bull market's key pillars are crumbling — here's what that could mean for your portfolio

HAVE YOUR SAY

Elon Musk just became the world's first trillionaire — he now holds more wealth than the bottom 46% of the entire global population. Should there be trillionaires?

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See you soon with another quick roundup of the financial news that matters.

Today's newsletter was written by Shirley Sze and edited by Rudro Chakrabarti. Stories by Vishesh Raisinghani, Victoria Vesovski, Jing Pan, Becky Robertson, Rinna Diamantakos, AnnaMarie Houlis and Eric Esposito.

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