The Pentagon was scheduled on Friday to temporary Elon Musk on the U.S. navy’s plan for any conflict which may escape with China, two U.S. officers mentioned on Thursday.
One other official mentioned the briefing can be China targeted, with out offering further particulars. A fourth official confirmed Mr. Musk was to be on the Pentagon on Friday, however supplied no particulars.
Hours after information of the deliberate assembly was revealed by The New York Instances, Pentagon officers and President Trump denied that the session can be about navy plans involving China. “China won’t even be talked about or mentioned,” Mr. Trump mentioned in a late-night social media publish.
It was not clear if the briefing for Mr. Musk would go forward as initially deliberate. However offering Mr. Musk entry to among the nation’s most carefully guarded navy secrets and techniques can be a dramatic enlargement of his already in depth function as an adviser to Mr. Trump and chief of his effort to slash spending and purge the federal government of individuals and insurance policies they oppose.
It could additionally convey into sharp reduction the questions on Mr. Musk’s conflicts of curiosity as he ranges extensively throughout the federal paperwork whereas persevering with to run companies which might be main authorities contractors. On this case, Mr. Musk, the billionaire chief govt of each SpaceX and Tesla, is a number one provider to the Pentagon and has in depth monetary pursuits in China.
Pentagon conflict plans, identified in navy jargon as O-plans or operational plans, are among the many navy’s most carefully guarded secrets and techniques. If a international nation had been to find out how the US deliberate to battle a conflict in opposition to them, it may reinforce its defenses and handle its weaknesses, making the plans far much less prone to succeed.
The highest-secret briefing that exists for the China conflict plan has about 20 to 30 slides that lay out how the US would battle such a battle. It covers the plan starting with the indications and warning of a risk from China to varied choices on what Chinese language targets to hit, over what time interval, that might be offered to Mr. Trump for selections, based on officers with information of the plan.
A White Home spokesman didn’t reply to an e-mail in search of remark concerning the goal of the go to, the way it took place, whether or not Mr. Trump was conscious of it, and whether or not the go to raises questions of conflicts of curiosity. The White Home has not mentioned whether or not Mr. Trump signed a conflicts of curiosity waiver for Mr. Musk.
The chief Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, initially didn’t reply to the same e-mail in search of remark about why Mr. Musk was to obtain a briefing on the China conflict plan. Quickly after The Instances revealed this text on Thursday night, Mr. Parnell gave a brief assertion: “The Protection Division is happy to welcome Elon Musk to the Pentagon on Friday. He was invited by Secretary Hegseth and is simply visiting.”
About an hour later, Mr. Parnell posted a message on his X account: “That is 100% Pretend Information. Simply openly & maliciously unsuitable. Elon Musk is a patriot. We’re proud to have him on the Pentagon.”
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth additionally commented on X late on Thursday, saying: “That is NOT a gathering about ‘high secret China conflict plans.’ It’s a casual assembly about innovation, efficiencies & smarter manufacturing. Gonna be nice!”
Roughly half-hour after that social media publish, The Wall Road Journal confirmed that Mr. Musk had been scheduled to be briefed on the conflict planning for China.
In his personal publish on social media early Friday, Mr. Musk mentioned he regarded ahead to “the prosecutions of these on the Pentagon who’re leaking maliciously false info to NYT.”
Regardless of the assembly will now be about, the planning mirrored the extraordinary twin function performed by Mr. Musk, who’s each the world’s wealthiest man and has been given broad authority by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Musk has a safety clearance, and Mr. Hegseth can decide who has a have to know concerning the plan.
Mr. Hegseth; Adm. Christopher W. Grady, the performing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers; and Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, the top of the navy’s Indo-Pacific Command, had been set to current Mr. Musk with particulars on the U.S. plan to counter China within the occasion of navy battle between the 2 international locations, the officers mentioned.
The assembly had been set to be held not in Mr. Hegseth’s workplace — the place a casual dialogue about innovation would most certainly happen — however within the Tank, a safe convention room within the Pentagon, usually used for high-level conferences of members of the Joint Chiefs, their senior workers and visiting combatant commanders.
Operational plans for main contingencies, like a conflict with China, are extraordinarily troublesome for folks with out in depth navy planning expertise to know. The technical nature is why presidents are usually offered with the broad contours of a plan, reasonably than the precise particulars of paperwork. What number of particulars Mr. Musk had needed or anticipated to listen to was unclear.
Mr. Hegseth obtained a part of the China conflict plan briefing final week and one other half on Wednesday, based on officers aware of the plan.
It was unclear what the impetus was for offering Mr. Musk such a delicate briefing. He isn’t within the navy chain of command, neither is he an official adviser to Mr. Trump on navy issues involving China.
However there’s a doable cause Mr. Musk may need wanted to know facets of the conflict plan. If Mr. Musk and his group of price cutters from the Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, wish to trim the Pentagon price range in a accountable approach, they could have to know what weapons methods the Pentagon plans to make use of in a battle with China.
Take plane carriers, for instance. Slicing again on future plane carriers would save billions of {dollars}, cash that may very well be spent on drones or different weaponry. But when the U.S. conflict technique depends on utilizing plane carriers in progressive ways in which would shock China, mothballing present ships or stopping manufacturing on future ships may cripple that plan.
Planning for a conflict with China has dominated Pentagon pondering for a long time, properly earlier than a doable confrontation with Beijing turned extra typical knowledge on Capitol Hill. The US has constructed its Air Forces, Navy and House Forces — and much more lately its Marines and Military forces — with a doable battle in opposition to China in thoughts.
Critics have mentioned the navy has invested an excessive amount of in large costly methods like fighter jets or plane carriers and too little in midrange drones and coastal defenses. However for Mr. Musk to guage tips on how to reorient Pentagon spending, he would wish to know what the navy intends to make use of and for what goal.
Mr. Musk has already known as for the Pentagon to cease shopping for sure high-priced gadgets like F-35 fighter jets, manufactured by one among his space-launch opponents, Lockheed Martin, in a program that prices the Pentagon greater than $12 billion a 12 months.
But Mr. Musk’s in depth enterprise pursuits make any entry to strategic secrets and techniques about China a significant issue within the view of ethics specialists. Officers have mentioned revisions to the conflict plans in opposition to China have targeted on upgrading the plans for defending in opposition to area warfare. China has developed a collection of weapons that may assault U.S. satellites.
Mr. Musk’s constellations of low-earth orbit Starlink satellites, which give knowledge and communications companies from area, are thought of extra resilient than conventional satellites. However he may have an curiosity in studying about whether or not or not the US may defend his satellites in a conflict with China.
Collaborating in a labeled briefing on the China risk with among the most senior Pentagon and U.S. navy officers can be a tremendously useful alternative for any protection contractor in search of to promote companies to the navy.
Mr. Musk may achieve perception into new instruments that the Pentagon may want and that SpaceX, the place he stays the chief govt, may promote.
Contractors working on related Pentagon initiatives usually do have entry to sure restricted conflict planning paperwork, however solely as soon as conflict plans are authorized, mentioned Todd Harrison, a senior fellow on the American Enterprise Institute, the place he focuses on protection technique. Particular person executives hardly ever if ever get unique entry to high Pentagon officers for such a delicate briefing, Mr. Harrison mentioned.
“Musk at a war-planning briefing?” he mentioned. “Giving the CEO of 1 protection firm distinctive entry looks like this may very well be grounds for a contract protest and is an actual battle of curiosity.”
Mr. Musk’s SpaceX is already being paid billions of {dollars} by the Pentagon and federal spy businesses to assist the US construct new navy satellite tv for pc networks to attempt to confront rising navy threats from China. SpaceX launches most of those navy satellites for the Pentagon on its Falcon 9 rockets, which take off from launchpads SpaceX has arrange at navy bases in Florida and California.
The corporate individually has been paid a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars} by the Pentagon that now depends closely on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite tv for pc communications community for navy personnel to transmit knowledge worldwide.
In 2024, SpaceX was granted about $1.6 billion in Air Power contracts. That doesn’t embody labeled spending with SpaceX by the Nationwide Reconnaissance Workplace, which has employed the corporate to construct it a brand new constellation of low-earth orbit satellites to spy on China, Russia and different threats.
Mr. Trump has already proposed that the US construct a brand new system the navy is looking Golden Dome, a space-based missile protection system that remembers what President Ronald Reagan tried to ship. (The so-called Star Wars system Mr. Reagan had in thoughts was by no means totally developed.)
Perceived missile threats from China — be it nuclear weapons or hypersonic missiles or cruise missiles — are a significant component that led Mr. Trump to signal an govt order lately instructing the Pentagon to begin work on Golden Dome.
Even beginning to plan and construct the primary parts of the system will price tens of billions of {dollars}, based on Pentagon officers, and most certainly create giant enterprise alternatives for SpaceX, which already supplies rocket launches, satellite tv for pc buildings, and space-based knowledge communications methods, all of which can be required for Golden Dome.
Individually, Mr. Musk has been the main target of an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector common over questions on his compliance along with his top-secret safety clearance.
The investigations began final 12 months after some SpaceX staff complained to authorities businesses that Mr. Musk and others at SpaceX weren’t correctly reporting contacts or conversations with international leaders.
Air Power officers, earlier than the top of the Biden administration, began their very own evaluation, after Senate Democrats requested questions on Mr. Musk and asserted that he was not complying with safety clearance necessities.
The Air Power, the truth is, had denied a request by Mr. Musk for a fair greater stage of safety clearance, referred to as Particular Entry Program, which is reserved for extraordinarily delicate labeled applications, citing potential safety dangers related to the billionaire.
The truth is, SpaceX has change into so useful to the Pentagon that the Chinese language authorities has mentioned it considers the corporate to be an extension of the U.S. navy.
“Starlink Militarization and Its Affect on World Strategic Stability” was the headline of 1 publication launched final 12 months from China’s Nationwide College of Protection Know-how, based on a translation of the paper ready by the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research.
Mr. Musk and Tesla, an electrical automobile firm he controls, are closely reliant on China, which homes one of many auto maker’s flagship factories in Shanghai. Unveiled in 2019, the state-of-the-art facility was constructed with particular permission from the Chinese language authorities, and now accounts for greater than half of Tesla’s world deliveries. Final 12 months, the corporate mentioned in monetary filings that it had a $2.8 billion mortgage settlement with lenders in China for manufacturing expenditures.
In public, Mr. Musk has averted criticizing Beijing and signaled his willingness to work with the Chinese language Communist Celebration. In 2022, he wrote a column for the journal of the Our on-line world Administration of China, the nation’s censorship company, trumpeting his firms and their missions of enhancing humanity.
That very same 12 months, the billionaire advised The Monetary Instances that China ought to be given some management over Taiwan by making a “particular administrative zone for Taiwan that’s moderately palatable,” an assertion that angered politicians of the impartial island. In that very same interview, he additionally famous that Beijing sought assurances that he wouldn’t promote Starlink in China.
The next 12 months at a tech convention, Mr. Musk known as the democratic island “an integral a part of China that’s arbitrarily not a part of China,” and in contrast the Taiwan-China scenario to Hawaii and the US.
On X, the social platform he owns, Mr. Musk has lengthy used his account to reward China. He has mentioned the nation is “by far” the world chief in electrical automobiles and solar energy, and has counseled its area program for being “way more superior than folks notice.” He has inspired extra folks to go to the nation, and posited brazenly about an “inevitable” Russia-China alliance.
Aaron Kessler contributed reporting.
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