{"id":5205,"date":"2025-03-21T17:50:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T17:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=5205"},"modified":"2025-03-21T17:50:18","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T17:50:18","slug":"trump-denies-that-musk-was-going-to-be-briefed-on-china-war-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=5205","title":{"rendered":"Trump denies that Musk was going to be briefed on China war plans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Elon Musk visited the Pentagon on Friday for a meeting at the invitation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — after which President Donald Trump continued to assert that Musk was not briefed on a war plan with China.<\/p>\n

A U.S. official told ABC News that Musk would attend a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff that, among its topics, would touch on China. However, instead of meeting with the Joint Chiefs, Musk met with Hegseth and staffers.<\/p>\n

The New York Times reported<\/a> on Thursday that Musk would receive a briefing from senior military leaders about a top-secret military plan for potential war with China.<\/p>\n

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Elon Musk and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth shake hands at the Pentagon in Washington, Mar. 21, 2025.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Idrees Ali\/Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Musk, Hegseth and Trump denied the report. The New York Times says the meeting was canceled because of its report.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to show that to anybody. But certainly, you wouldn’t show it to a businessman who is helping us so much. He’s a great patriot … But I certainly wouldn’t want — you know, Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible perhaps to that. But it was such a fake story,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday.<\/p>\n

Hegseth said Musk was at the Pentagon to talk about Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.<\/p>\n

“There was no war plans. There was no Chinese war plans. There was no secret plans. That’s not what we were doing at the Pentagon,” Hegseth said.<\/p>\n

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks next to President Donald Trump, in the Oval Office at the White House, in Washington, Mar. 21, 2025.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Carlos Barria\/Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

As he departed Hegseth’s office on Friday, Musk was asked by reporters how the meeting went and responded that “it’s always a great meeting.”<\/p>\n

“I’ve been here before, you know,” Musk added as both he and Hegseth walked together. Musk did visit the Pentagon in 2016 to meet with then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter.<\/p>\n

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Elon Musk arrives for a meeting at the Pentagon in Washington, Mar. 21, 2025.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Phillip Stewart\/Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When they were outside the Pentagon, Hegseth and Musk shook hands and Musk was overhead to say, “If there’s anything I can do to be helpful, I’d like to see you.”<\/p>\n

Neither responded to questions at that time about whether they had discussed China or if was a classified briefing.<\/p>\n

Hegseth previously posted on X that the meeting was not about “China war plans,” but rather described it as an “informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies & smarter production.”<\/p>\n

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Elon Musk and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon in Washington, Mar. 21, 2025.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Idrees Ali\/Reuters<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Trump posted on his conservative social media platform that China would not be mentioned or discussed during the meeting.<\/p>\n

Musk went so far as to suggest there should be prosecutions of anyone at the Pentagon who may have leaked information.<\/p>\n

“They will be found,” Musk wrote on X.<\/p>\n

ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Chris Boccia contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elon Musk visited the Pentagon on Friday for a meeting at the invitation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — after which President Donald Trump continued to assert that Musk was not briefed on a war plan with China. A U.S. official told ABC News that Musk would attend a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5207,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205\/revisions\/5207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}