Trump dashed Musk's secret Pentagon briefing on China
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
President Trump talks with Elon Musk in the Oval office on March 14, a week before the controversy over a planned Pentagon briefing for Musk. Photo: Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images
Beyond tariffs and court battles over Trump policies, two pieces of White House palace intrigue emerged Tuesday:
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended two top Pentagon officials, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, as part of an investigation into who leaked word of a planned top-secret briefing on China for Elon Musk.
- Axios learned that Musk or Hegseth didn't just decide to call off that briefing after the leak. President Trump himself ordered staffers to kill it.
- "What the f**k is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn't go," Trump said, a top official recalled to Axios.
Why it matters: Musk has annoyed several administration officials with his constant presence at the White House, his haphazard social media posts and his slash-and-burn tactics at his Department of Government Efficiency.
- The planned Pentagon briefing, however, got him cross with the boss at the Resolute Desk.
- "POTUS still very much loves Elon, but there are some red lines," the official said. "Elon has a lot of business in China and he has good relations there, and this briefing just wasn't the right thing."
- Trump also had said he wouldn't allow conflicts of interest with Musk on his watch, although critics doubt his sincerity.
Flashback: The China episode became public on March 20, when the New York Times accurately reported that Musk was scheduled the next day to receive a Pentagon briefing on military plans in case of war with China.
- At 11 p.m. on March 20, Trump took to Truth Social to call the report "Fake News" from "the Failing New York Times."
- "They said, incorrectly, that Elon Musk is going to the Pentagon tomorrow to be briefed on any potential 'war with China,' " Trump wrote. "How ridiculous? China will not even be mentioned or discussed. How disgraceful it is that the discredited media can make up such lies. Anyway, the story is completely untrue!!!"
But that Truth Social message wasn't posted until the plan for the Pentagon briefing for Musk had been changed.
- Musk still attended a briefing at the Pentagon with Hegseth on March 21. But China wasn't discussed.
- In the White House that day, Trump let slip his true feelings about Musk's entanglements with China.
- "I certainly wouldn't want, you know — Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that," he told reporters. "But it was such a fake story."
- For his part, Musk wrote on X: "I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT. They will be found."
The latest: After Reuters broke the news of Caldwell's suspension, Politico reported late Tuesday that Selnick also had been put on leave and escorted from the Pentagon.
- Besides the China briefing planned for Musk, the leak probe focuses on Panama Canal military plans, Red Sea operations and intelligence collection in Ukraine, Politico reported.
