### Bug or Regression

- Avoid GCE API calls when initializing GCE CloudProvider for Kubelets.

* Job controller now respects ControllerRef to avoid fighting over Pods. ([#42176](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/42176), [@enisoc](https://github.com/enisoc))

* CronJob controller now respects ControllerRef to avoid fighting with other controllers. ([#42177](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/42177), [@enisoc](https://github.com/enisoc))

- Avoid caching the Azure VMSS instances whose network profile is nil ([#100948](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/100948), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer)) [SIG Cloud Provider]

### Bug or Regression

- Avoid GCE API calls when initializing GCE CloudProvider for Kubelets.

    * Default value for expendable pod priority cutoff in GCP deployment of Cluster Autoscaler changed from 0 to -10.
    * action required: users deploying workloads with priority lower than 0 may want to use priority lower than -10 to avoid triggering scale-up.

### Other notable changes

* Metadata Agent Improvements ([#66485](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/66485), [@bmoyles0117](https://github.com/bmoyles0117))

Anyway, the cluster should get back to the proper size after 10 min.

### Deployment

  
  When adding links which point to resources within git repositories, like
  KEPs or supporting documentation, please reference a specific commit and avoid
  linking directly to the master branch. This ensures that links reference a
  specific point in time, rather than a document that may change over time.
  

- DaemonSet controller is now using backoff algorithm to avoid hot loops fighting with kubelet on pod recreation when a particular DaemonSet is misconfigured. ([#65309](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/65309), [@tnozicka](https://github.com/tnozicka))

* Fix metrics API group name in audit configuration ([#53493](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/53493), [@piosz](https://github.com/piosz))
* Use separate client for leader election in scheduler to avoid starving leader election by regular scheduler operations. ([#53793](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/53793), [@wojtek-t](https://github.com/wojtek-t))

* A cluster-autoscaler ClusterRole is added to cover only the functionality required by Cluster Autoscaler and avoid abusing system:cluster-admin role. ([#64503](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64503), [@kgolab](https://github.com/kgolab))