The Pentagon is scheduled on Friday to transient Elon Musk on the U.S. army’s plan for any warfare which may get away with China, two U.S. officers stated on Thursday.
One other official stated the briefing can be China centered, with out offering extra particulars. A fourth official confirmed Mr. Musk was to be on the Pentagon on Friday, however supplied no particulars.
Offering Mr. Musk entry to a number of the nation’s most carefully guarded army secrets and techniques could be a dramatic enlargement of his already intensive function as an adviser to President Trump and chief of his effort to slash spending and purge the federal government of individuals and insurance policies they oppose.
It might additionally deliver 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 government of each SpaceX and Tesla, is a number one provider to the Pentagon and has intensive monetary pursuits in China.
Pentagon warfare plans, identified in army jargon as O-plans or operational plans, are among the many army’s most carefully guarded secrets and techniques. If a overseas nation was to find out how the US deliberate to struggle a warfare 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 for the China warfare plan has about 20 to 30 slides that lay out how the US would struggle such a battle. It covers the plan starting with the indications and warning of a menace from China to numerous choices on what Chinese language targets to hit, over what time interval, that will be introduced to Mr. Trump for selections, in keeping with officers with information of the plan.
A White Home spokesman didn’t reply to an electronic mail looking for remark in regards to the goal of the go to, the way it happened, 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 stated whether or not Mr. Trump signed a conflicts of curiosity waiver for Mr. Musk.
After The Occasions printed this text, Sean Parnell, the chief Protection Division spokesman, stated in an announcement: “The Protection Division is worked up to welcome Elon Musk to the Pentagon on Friday. He was invited by Secretary Hegseth and is simply visiting.”
The assembly displays 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 Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth can decide who has a must know in regards to the plan. A alternative of sharing a lot of technical particulars with Mr. Musk, nevertheless, is one other matter.
Mr. Hegseth; Adm. Christopher W. Grady, the appearing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers; and Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, the pinnacle of the army’s Indo-Pacific Command, are set to current Mr. Musk with particulars on the U.S. plan to counter China within the occasion of army battle between the 2 international locations, the officers stated.
Operational plans for main contingencies, like a warfare with China, are extraordinarily troublesome for folks with out intensive army planning expertise to grasp. The technical nature is why presidents are usually introduced with the broad contours of a plan, somewhat than the precise particulars of paperwork. What number of particulars Mr. Musk will need or want to listen to is unclear.
Mr. Hegseth acquired a part of the China warfare plan briefing final week and one other half on Wednesday, in keeping with officers conversant in the plan.
It was unclear what the impetus was for offering Mr. Musk such a delicate briefing. He isn’t within the army chain of command, neither is he an official adviser to Mr. Trump on army issues involving China.
However there’s a potential motive Mr. Musk may must know features of the warfare plan. If Mr. Musk and his staff of price cutters from the Division of Authorities Effectivity, or DOGE, wish to trim the Pentagon funds in a accountable means, they could must know what weapons techniques the Pentagon plans to make use of in a struggle with China.
Take, for instance, plane carriers. Chopping again on future plane carriers would save billions of {dollars}, cash that might be spent on drones or different weaponry. But when the U.S. warfare 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 warfare with China has dominated Pentagon pondering for many years, properly earlier than a potential confrontation with Beijing grew to become extra standard knowledge on Capitol Hill. America has constructed its Air Forces, Navy and Area Forces — and much more not too long ago its Marines and Military forces — with a potential struggle in opposition to China in thoughts.
Critics have stated the army has invested an excessive amount of in huge costly techniques like fighter jets or plane carriers and too little in midrange drones and coastal defenses. However for Mr. Musk to guage the way to reorient Pentagon spending, he would wish to know what the army 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 rivals, Lockheed Martin, in a program that prices the Pentagon greater than $12 billion a yr.
But Mr. Musk’s intensive enterprise pursuits make his entry to strategic secrets and techniques about China a significant issue within the view of ethics specialists. Officers have stated revisions to the warfare plans in opposition to China have centered on upgrading the plans for defending in opposition to house 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 information and communications providers from house, are thought-about 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 warfare with China.
Collaborating in a categorised briefing on the China menace with a number of the most senior Pentagon and U.S. army officers could be a tremendously worthwhile alternative for any protection contractor looking for to promote providers to the army.
Mr. Musk may acquire perception into new instruments that the Pentagon may want and that SpaceX, the place he stays the chief government, may promote.
Contractors engaged on related Pentagon initiatives typically do have entry to sure restricted warfare planning paperwork, however solely as soon as warfare plans are authorized, stated 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 a briefing like this, Mr. Harrison stated.
“Musk at a war-planning briefing?” he stated. “Giving the CEO of 1 protection firm distinctive entry looks as if this might 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 army satellite tv for pc networks to attempt to confront rising army threats from China. SpaceX launches most of those army satellites for the Pentagon on its Falcon 9 rockets, which take off from launchpads SpaceX has arrange at army bases in Florida and California.
The corporate individually has been paid a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} by the Pentagon that now depends closely on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite tv for pc communications community for army personnel to transmit information worldwide.
In 2024, SpaceX was granted about $1.6 billion in Air Pressure contracts. That doesn’t embrace categorised 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 army is asking Golden Dome, a space-based missile protection system that recollects 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 government order not too long ago instructing the Pentagon to begin work on Golden Dome.
Even beginning to plan and construct the primary elements of the system will price tens of billions of {dollars}, in keeping with Pentagon officers, and probably create massive enterprise alternatives for SpaceX, which already offers rocket launches, satellite tv for pc constructions, and space-based information communications techniques, all of which can be required for Golden Dome.
Individually, Mr. Musk has been the main focus of an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector normal over questions on his compliance along with his top-secret safety clearance.
The investigations began final yr after some SpaceX workers complained to authorities businesses that Mr. Musk and others at SpaceX weren’t correctly reporting contacts or conversations with overseas leaders.
Air Pressure officers, earlier than the top of the Biden administration, began their very own overview, after Senate Democrats asked questions about Mr. Musk and asserted that he was not complying with safety clearance necessities.
The Air Pressure, actually, had denied a request by Mr. Musk for an excellent increased stage of safety clearance, often known as Particular Entry Program, which is reserved for terribly delicate categorised applications, citing potential safety dangers related to the billionaire.
The truth is, SpaceX has grow to be so worthwhile to the Pentagon that the Chinese language authorities has stated it considers the corporate to be an extension of the U.S. army.
“Starlink Militarization and Its Affect on International Strategic Stability” was the headline of 1 publication launched final yr from China’s Nationwide College of Protection Know-how, in keeping with a translation of the paper ready by the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research.
Mr. Musk and Tesla, an electrical car 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 built with special permission from the Chinese language authorities, and now accounts for greater than half of Tesla’s international deliveries. Final yr, the corporate stated in financial filings that it had a $2.8 billion mortgage settlement with lenders in China for manufacturing expenditures.
In public, Mr. Musk has prevented criticizing Beijing and signaled his willingness to work with the Chinese language Communist Get together. 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 yr, the billionaire informed The Financial Times 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 yr at a tech conference, 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 state of affairs to Hawaii and the US.
On X, the social platform he owns, Mr. Musk has lengthy used his account to reward China. He has stated the nation is “by far” the world leader in electrical automobiles and solar energy, and has commended its house program for being “much more superior than folks notice.” He has encouraged extra folks to go to the nation, and posited brazenly about an “inevitable” Russia-China alliance.
Aaron Kessler contributed reporting.
