The Pentagon was scheduled on March 21st to brief Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the military’s plan for a potential war against China, two U.S. officials confirmed the day before. A third official further confirmed the China focus, while a fourth further confirmed Musk’s presence. Hours after the New York Times reported on the briefing, officials, including President Trump, denied that the meeting involved China. “China will not even be mentioned or discussed,” the president said in a social media post.
Many have raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest with Musk, considering he has extensive financial interests in China, potentially giving him reason to sell war secrets. A White House spokesman did not respond to an email inquiring about the purpose of Musk’s visit, how it came to be, whether President Trump was aware of it, and whether it raises conflicts of interest. The White House has also not confirmed if Trump signed a conflicts of interest waiver for Musk.
Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement, “The Defense Department is excited to welcome Elon Musk to the Pentagon on Friday. He was invited by Secretary Hegseth and is just visiting.”
Hours after the New York Times posted an article regarding Musk’s briefing, Parnell made a post on Twitter/X, saying, “This is 100% Fake News. Just brazenly & maliciously wrong. Elon Musk is a patriot. We are proud to have him at the Pentagon.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also chimed in, saying, “This is NOT a meeting about ‘top secret China war plans.’ It’s an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies & smarter production. Gonna be great!”
Roughly 30 minutes after Hegseth’s post, the Wall Street Journal posted an article confirming that the meeting is indeed about war plans with China. On the 21st, Musk himself made a post on the matter, stating that he is looking forward to “the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT.”
The Musk-owned SpaceX is already being paid billions by the Pentagon and federal spy agencies to help build new military satellite networks in an attempt to confront rising threats from China. The company has received another $1.6 billion from Air Force contracts, not including classified spending from the National Reconnaissance Office, which hired SpaceX to build low-earth orbit satellites to spy on threats, such as Russia and China.
