President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk converse to the press on the White Home on March 11
Mandel Ngan/AFP through Getty Pictures
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Mandel Ngan/AFP through Getty Pictures
Elon Musk is meant to go to the Pentagon on Friday. However what he’ll be doing there has ignited a recent storm of controversy surrounding his entry to delicate authorities data.
The New York Times, citing unnamed officers, reported that Musk would obtain a briefing on U.S. plans for any potential battle with China, which contain among the navy’s most intently guarded secrets and techniques.
“The highest-secret briefing that exists for the China warfare plan has about 20 to 30 slides that lay out how america would battle such a battle,” the Instances reported. “It covers the plan starting with the indications and warning of a menace from China to varied choices on what Chinese language targets to hit, over what time interval, that may be introduced to Mr. Trump for selections, in line with officers with information of the plan.”
Nevertheless, President Trump and members of his administration instantly pushed again on social media.
“How ridiculous. China is not going to even be talked about or mentioned,” Trump wrote.
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth stated Thursday night on X:X “We sit up for welcoming @elonmusk
to the Pentagon tomorrow. However the faux information delivers once more — that is NOT a gathering about ‘high secret China warfare plans.’ It is an off-the-cuff assembly about innovation, efficiencies & smarter manufacturing. Gonna be nice!”
Musk additionally weighed in on X, the platform he owns, saying “The New York Instances is pure propaganda. Additionally, I sit up for the prosecutions of these on the Pentagon who’re leaking maliciously false data to NYT. They are going to be discovered.”
The Pentagon briefing was set to happen in a safe assembly place usually utilized by the Joint Chiefs, identified informally as “the tank.” That is in line with a U.S. official, who spoke to NPR on situation of anonymity.
The official additionally stated that Adm. Samuel Paparo, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which incorporates China, will participate just about from Sri Lanka.
Pentagon officers stated the briefing would concentrate on China however would solely include unclassified data.
Musk’s widespread entry to authorities data via the Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, has already sparked a number of controversies.
His go to to the Pentagon raises further questions. One is about what kind of nationwide safety data is being made obtainable to Musk or members of his DOGE staff.
As well as, Musk has intensive enterprise ties to the Pentagon and to China, elevating a number of points about doable conflicts of curiosity. As the top of Tesla, Musk has intensive operations in China. And because the head of SpaceX, Musk and his firm obtain billions of {dollars} from the Pentagon to launch navy satellites.
The U.S. navy and Ukraine’s navy each rely extensively on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite tv for pc communications community.
NPR’s Tom Bowman contributed to this report.
