 "'Such a fake story': Trump says couldn't have allowed military’s China plan to be shared with Musk or anyone like him")
A day after a New York Times report claimed that Donald Trump’s close ally billionaire Elon Musk was due to be briefed on Friday by the Pentagon about the US military’s plan for potential war with China, US President on Friday dismissed the claim, saying that he couldn’t have allowed military’s China plan to be shared with Musk or anyone like him.
Speaking at the Oval Office alongside Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trump said, “I don’t want other people seeing, anybody seeing potential war with China. 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."
Trump acknowledged concerns about Musk’s potential access to the plan, given his business interests in China.
“You know, Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that, but it was such a fake story,” Trump added.
Hegseth said that Musk was not shown the plan during his visit to the Pentagon earlier in the day.
“Elon Musk is a patriot. Elon Musk is an innovator. Elon Musk provides a lot of capabilities our government and our military rely on, and I’m grateful for that,” The Guardian quoted Hegseth as saying.
Hegseth said that reports suggesting Musk would be shown the plan were meant to “undermine whatever relationship the Pentagon has with” him.
“We welcomed him today to the Pentagon to talk about (the department of government efficiency), to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations. It was a great informal conversation. The rest of that reporting was fake. There was no war plans. There was no Chinese war plans. There was no secret plans. That’s not what we were doing the Pentagon,” added the defence secretary.
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View AllAccording to a CNN report, Musk arrived at the Pentagon at 9 am ET for meetings with senior Pentagon leadership and exited Hegseth’s office at 10:21 am ET.
When asked by how the meeting went, Musk responded, “It’s always a great meeting.”
“I’ve been here before you know,” he added, as he and Hegseth laughed and walked down the stairs to the building’s entrance.
Outside the Pentagon, Musk and Hegseth shook hands as the tech billionaire told him, “If there’s anything I can do to be helpful, I’d like to see you.”
He told Hegseth that he’d “really like us to have a good outcome here.”
The meeting follows a New York Times report on Thursday claiming that Musk would be briefed on the US military’s plans for a potential conflict with China. President Donald Trump dismissed the report in a late-night Truth Social post, claiming that “China will not even be mentioned or discussed.”
Neither Hegseth nor Musk responded to shouted questions regarding whether China was discussed during their meeting or if it was a classified briefing, reported CNN.
With inputs from agencies
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