Musk has been set to reach the United States Upper War Plan with China

Two US officials said on Thursday that the Pentagon is scheduled for Friday to inform Elon Musk about the US military’s plan for any war that might break out with China.

Another official said that the briefing would focus China, without providing additional details. A fourth official confirmed that Mr. Musk was in the Pentagon on Friday, but he did not provide any details.

Providing access to Mr. Musk to some of the most guarded military secrets in the country will be a dramatic expansion of its vast role as a consultant to President Trump and the leader of his efforts to reduce spending and purify the government of the persons and the policies they oppose.

It will also lead to a sharp relief about the questions related to Mr. Musk’s conflict of his interest because it ranges widely through the federal bureaucracy while continuing to manage companies that are major government contractors. In this case, Mr. Musk, CEO of billionaires for both Spacex and Tesla, is the main resource of the Pentagon and has wide financial interests in China.

The Pentagon War plans, known in military terms as O-Plans or operational plans, are among the most guarded army secrets. If there is a foreign country learning how the United States planned to fight against them, it can enhance its defenses and address its weaknesses, making the plans less likely to succeed.

The supreme secret briefing of China’s war plan contains about 20 to 30 slides that put how the United States will fight such a conflict. It covers the plan that begins with indicators and warning against the threat from China to different options about the Chinese goals that must be struck during the time period, which will be presented to Mr. Trump for decisions, according to officials to know the plan.

A White House spokesman did not respond to an email seeking a comment on the purpose of the visit, how this happened, and whether Mr. Trump is aware of him, and whether the visit raises questions about conflicting interests. The White House did not say whether Mr. Trump had conflicting interests to give up Mr. Musk.

After the Times published this article, Sean Barnell, chief spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, said in a statement: “The Ministry of Defense is excited to welcome Eileon Musk in the Pentagon on Friday.

The meeting reflects the extra normal role played by Mr. Musk, the richest man in the world and was given a wide authority from Mr. Trump.

Mr. Musk has a security permit, and the Ministry of Defense can determine who has the need to know the plan. The option to share many technical details with Mr. Musk, is another issue.

Mr. Higseth; Admiral Christopher WADD, Acting Chief of Chiefs of Chiefs of Staff; The officials said the Admiral Samuel J. Babaro, head of the Indian and Pacific Army Command, is scheduled to provide details of the United States’s plan to confront China in the event of a military conflict between the two countries.

Operating plans for major emergency cases, such as war with China, are very difficult for people who have no experience in widespread military planning to understand it. Technical nature is the reason that presidents are usually presented with wide features of the plan, instead of the actual details of the documents. How many details that Mr. Musk wants or needs to be heard is unclear.

Mr. Higseth received part of the China War plan last week and another part on Wednesday, according to officials familiar with the plan.

It was not clear that the motivation was to provide Mr. Musk with such a sensitive briefing. He is not in the military leadership chain, nor is he not an official adviser to Mr. Trump on the military issues involved in China.

But there is a possible reason that Mr. Musk may need to know the aspects of the war plan. If Mr. Musk and his team are from the costs from the Ministry of Government efficiency, or Doug, they want to trim the Pentagon’s budget in a responsible way, they may need to know the arms systems that the Pentagon plans to use in a battle with China.

Take, for example, aircraft carriers. Reducing future aircraft companies will save billions of dollars, or money that can be spent on drones or other weapons. But if the American war strategy depends on the use of aircraft carriers in innovative ways that will surprise China, then filling out current ships or stopping production on future ships can paralyze this plan.

War planning with China dominated the Pentagon’s thinking for decades, before the potential confrontation with Beijing became the most wisdom wise in Capitol Hill. The United States has built its air forces and the navy and satellite forces – and even recently from the Marine Corps and its army – with possible observance against China.

Critics said that the army has invested a lot in expensive large systems such as combat aircraft or aircraft companies and a few medium -range drones and coastal defenses. But in order for Mr. Musk to measure how to redirect Pentagon spending, he wants to know what the army intends to use and for any purpose.

Mr. Musk has already called the Pentagon to stop buying some high -price elements Like F-35 combat aircraftManufactured by one of his competitors in space launch, Lockheed Martin, in a program that costs the Pentagon more than 12 billion dollars general.

However, Mr. Musk’s widespread interests make his access to strategic secrets around China a serious problem in the view of ethics experts. Officials said the reviews facing war plans against China have focused on upgrading the plans to defend the satellite war. China has developed a set of weapons that can attack us satellites.

Mr. Musk Towers are a satellite for the low -Earth orbit, which provides data and communications services from space, more flexible than traditional satellites. But it can have an interest in knowing whether the United States can defend its moon in a war with China or not.

Participating in a secret briefing on China’s threat with some of the senior Pentagon officials and the American army will be a great valuable opportunity for any defensive contractor seeking to sell services to the army.

Mr. Musk may acquire an insight into the new tools that the Pentagon may need and that Spacex, where the CEO remains, can sell it.

Todd Harrison, an older colleague at the American Projects Institute, who focuses on the defense strategy, said that the contractors working on the Pentagon projects in general can generally reach some of the limited war planning documents, but once the war plans are approved only. Mr. Harrison said that individual executives rarely get exclusive access to senior Pentagon officials to obtain a conference like this.

“Musk in the war planning?” He said. “It seems that giving the CEO of one company to unique access may be this might be reasons for protesting the contract and is a real conflict of interests.”

Musk’s Spacex is already paid billions of dollars by federal and federal spy agencies to help the United States build new Satsy military networks to try to face the increasing military threats from China. Spacex launches most of these Pentagon’s military satellites on Falcon 9 missiles, created by Launchpads Spacex that established military bases in Florida and California.

The company has been paid separately hundreds of millions of dollars by the Pentagon, which is now highly dependent on the SPACEX Starlink Satellite communication network for military personnel to transfer data all over the world.

In 2024, SpaceX was granted about $ 1.6 billion in Air Force contracts. This does not include spending with Spacex by the National Reconciliation Office, which has rented the company to build a new constellation of satellites for low -Earth -land orbits on China, Russia and other threats.

Mr. Trump has already suggested that the United States adopt a new system that the army invites The golden domeA space -based missile defense system remembers what President Ronald Reagan tried to present. (Star Wars system called Mr. Reagan has not been developed.

Victory missile threats from China – whether they are nuclear weapons, hyperactivity missiles or cruise missiles – are a major factor that prompted Mr. Trump to sign an executive order recently directing the Pentagon to start working in the golden dome.

Even starting to plan and build the first components of the system will cost tens of billions of dollars, according to Pentagon officials, and most likely creates great job opportunities for SpaceX, which already provides missile launch operations, satellite structures, and space data communications systems, which will all be required for gold.

Separately, Mr. Musk was the focus of the investigation conducted by the Pentagon General Inspector over questions about his compliance with his high security clearance.

Investigations Last year, after some SpaceX employees complained to government agencies that Mr. Musk and others in Spacex had never reported communications or conversations with foreign leaders.

Air Force officials, before the end of the Biden administration, began their own review, after the Democrats in the Senate Questions asked About Mr. Musk and confirmed that he does not comply with the requirements of security clearance.

In fact, the Air Force denied a request from Mr. Musk for a higher level of security clearance, known as the Special Access Program, which is allocated to very sensitive classified programs, citing the potential security risks associated with billionaire.

In fact, Spacex has become so much valuable for the Pentagon that the Chinese government said it considers the company an extension of the American army.

The “Starlink and its impact on global strategic stability” was the main title of one Publishing Last year was released by the National University of Defense Technology, according to the translation of the paper prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Mr. Musk and Tesla, a controlled electric cars company, depends greatly on China, which includes one of the leading factories in the car maker in Shanghai. It was revealed in 2019, it was the modern facility Built with a special permission From the Chinese government, now it represents more than half of Tesla global delivery. Last year, the company said at Financial deposits It has a 2.8 billion dollar loan agreement with lenders in China for production expenses.

In public places, Mr. Musk avoided criticism of Beijing and indicated his willingness to work with the Communist Party of China. In 2022, he wrote column As for the Electronic Space Administration Magazine in China, the country’s control agency, and the adoption of its companies and missions in improving humanity.

In the same year, tell the billionaire Financial times China must be granted some control of Taiwan by making a “special administrative zone for Taiwan, which is reasonably palatable,” which is confirming the anger of politicians on the independent island. In that same interview, he also indicated that Beijing sought assurances that he would not sell Starlink in China.

The following year in TechnicalMr. Musk described the Democratic Island as “an integral part of China and not arbitrarily part of China”, and compared the Chinese Taiwan situation to Hawaii and the United States.

On X, his social platform, Mr. Musk has long used his account to praise China. He said that the country is “largely” Global leader In electric cars and solar energy, they have Bend Its space program for being “more advanced than people realize.” He has I encouraged More people to visit the country, and assume Frankly, about the Chinese Alliance of Russia “is inevitable.”

Harun Kisler The reports contributed.