Tech billionaire and senior Trump adviser Elon Musk visited the Pentagon on Friday for briefings that have sparked debate after multiple US media outlets reported that he would be given an overview of US plans in the event of war with China.
President Donald Trump denied the reports, saying “China will not even be mentioned or discussed”.
Musk himself called for the prosecution of officials he said had leaked “maliciously false information” to the New York Times, which first reported the story.
But the Pentagon visit represented an unusual level of access for the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, whose companies hold billions of dollars in federal defence contracts.
As Musk departed the defence secretary’s office around 10:21 local time (14:21 GMT) on Friday, reporters asked him about the meeting.
“It’s always a great meeting. I’ve been here before, you know,” he said before departing the Pentagon.
The public back-and-forth about the meeting follows a New York Times report that Musk would learn about the China war plan during his Pentagon visit.
But NBC News and Politico later reported the Pentagon meeting would involve unclassified information.
An unnamed US official told Reuters that the briefing would be an overview of several topics that included China.
Trump said the New York Times reported “incorrectly, that Elon Musk is going to the Pentagon tomorrow to be briefed on any potential ‘war with China.’ How ridiculous?” China will not even be mentioned or discussed. How disgraceful it is that the discredited media can make up such lies. Anyway, the story is completely untrue!!!”
The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, also denied the New York Times report, saying in a post on X “this is NOT a meeting about ‘top secret China war plans.’ It’s an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies & smarter production”.
Asked by reporters about the meeting on Friday, Trump said: “We don’t want to have a potential war with China, but I can tell you if we did, we’re very well equipped to handle it. But I don’t want to show [the plan] to anybody”.
He nodded to concerns about Musk’s visit to the Pentagon, which is drawing scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest, saying “you wouldn’t show it to a businessman”.
“Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible perhaps to that,” Trump said.
Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, has two facilities in Shanghai, China. Starlink and SpaceX, two of Musk’s companies, also have contracts with the defence department.
Since Trump returned to the White House, Musk, as the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), has been leading an outside effort to aggressively curtail government spending through funding cuts and firings.
By BBC News
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