The Pentagon is scheduled on Friday to transient Elon Musk on the U.S. army’s plan for any warfare which may escape with China, two U.S. officers stated on Thursday.
One other official stated the briefing will probably be China centered, with out offering further particulars. A fourth official confirmed Mr. Musk was to be on the Pentagon on Friday, however supplied no particulars.
Offering Mr. Musk entry to among the nation’s most intently guarded army secrets and techniques can be a dramatic growth of his already intensive position 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 will additionally convey into sharp aid the questions on Mr. Musk’s conflicts of curiosity as he ranges broadly 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 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 intently guarded secrets and techniques. If a international nation was to learn the way the USA deliberate to combat a warfare in opposition to them, it might reinforce its defenses and deal with 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 USA would combat 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 might be introduced to Mr. Trump for selections, in response to officers with information of the plan.
A White Home spokesman didn’t reply to an e-mail searching 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. A Protection Division spokesman didn’t reply to an identical e-mail.
The assembly displays the extraordinary twin position 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 number of technical particulars with Mr. Musk, nonetheless, is one other matter.
Mr. Hegseth; Adm. Christopher W. Grady, the performing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees; and Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, the top 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 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 obtained a part of the China warfare plan briefing final week and one other half on Wednesday, in response to officers accustomed to the plan.
It was unclear what the impetus was for offering Mr. Musk such a delicate briefing. He’s not within the army chain of command, neither is he an official adviser to Mr. Trump on army issues involving China.
However there’s a doable motive Mr. Musk would possibly must know in regards to the warfare 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 might must know what weapons programs the Pentagon plans to make use of in a combat with China.
Take, for instance, plane carriers. 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. warfare technique depends on utilizing plane carriers in revolutionary ways in which would shock China, mothballing present ships or stopping manufacturing on future ships might cripple that plan.
Planning for a warfare with China has dominated Pentagon considering for many years, effectively 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 combat in opposition to China in thoughts.
Critics have stated the army has invested an excessive amount of in massive costly programs 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 referred to as for the Pentagon to cease shopping for sure high-priced objects like F-35 fighter jets, manufactured by certainly one of his space-launch rivals, Lockheed Martin, in a program that prices the Pentagon greater than $12 billion a 12 months.
But Mr. Musk’s intensive enterprise pursuits make his entry to strategic secrets and techniques about China a major problem 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 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 offer broadband knowledge and communications companies from area, are thought of extra resilient than conventional satellites. However he might have an curiosity in studying about whether or not or not the USA might defend his satellites in a warfare with China.
Collaborating in a labeled briefing on the China menace with among the most senior Pentagon and U.S. army officers can be a tremendously useful alternative for any protection contractor searching for to promote companies to the army.
Mr. Musk might acquire perception into new instruments that the Pentagon would possibly want and that SpaceX, the place he stays the chief govt, might promote.
Contractors engaged on related Pentagon initiatives usually 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 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 companies to assist the USA 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 lot 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 knowledge worldwide.
In 2024, SpaceX was granted about $1.6 billion in Air Drive 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 USA construct a brand new system the army is asking 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 factor that led Mr. Trump to signal an govt order lately instructing the Pentagon to start out work on Golden Dome.
Even beginning to plan and construct the primary elements of the system will price tens of billions of {dollars}, in response to Pentagon officers, and more than likely create massive enterprise alternatives for SpaceX, which already supplies rocket launches, satellite tv for pc buildings, and space-based knowledge communications programs, all of which will probably 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 12 months after some SpaceX workers complained to authorities companies that Mr. Musk and others at SpaceX weren’t correctly reporting contacts or conversations with international leaders.
Air Drive officers, earlier than the tip of the Biden administration, began their very own evaluation, after Senate Democrats asked questions about Mr. Musk and asserted that he was not complying with safety clearance necessities.
The Air Drive, the truth is, had denied a request by Mr. Musk for an excellent increased stage of safety clearance, generally known as Particular Entry Program, which is reserved for terribly delicate labeled packages, citing potential safety dangers related to the billionaire.
In reality, SpaceX has turn out to be so useful 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 Impression on World Strategic Stability” was the headline of 1 publication launched final 12 months from China’s Nationwide College of Protection Know-how, in response to a translation of the paper ready by the Middle 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 manufacturing unit 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 12 months, 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 Social gathering. 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 instructed The Financial Times that China must be given some management over Taiwan by making a “particular administrative zone for Taiwan that’s fairly palatable,” an assertion that angered politicians of the unbiased 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 conference, Mr. Musk referred to 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 USA.
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 autos and solar energy, and has commended its area program for being “way 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.
