A New York Times report Friday that Trump administration adviser Elon Musk was to receive a personal briefing on US war plans was met with immediate pushback from the Pentagon and the White House and an epidemic of stealth-edited headlines.
The report came from the New York Times team of Eric Schmitt, Eric Lipton, Julian E. Barnes, Ryan Mac, and Maggie Haberman. At least three of those names will be familiar to anyone who followed the Russia Hoax and other NeverTrump smears during Trump’s first administration. This is the narrative the New York Times attempted to launch, “The Pentagon was scheduled on Friday to brief Elon Musk on the U.S. military’s plan for any war that might break out with China, two U.S. officials said on Thursday.”
It was parroted by the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Unlike many fake stories, this one received immediate and forceful pushback from the Defense Department and the White House.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, who is a breath of fresh air after the oily, slimy John Kirby, firmly batted the story down.
On the record, that is completely fake. Let me show you, this started with this New York Times headline, and they’ve since changed it, but “Musk Set to Get Access to Top-Secret U.S. Plan for Potential War With China.” This is egregious. This is fake. The New York Times should retract this story by anonymous sources. I’ve been on bi-lat(eral) calls with the Secretary. I see how hard he’s working to implement the president’s agenda and pursue peace through strength. This type of garbage from the New York Times undermines that process and undermines our mission. It shouldn’t happen at all. Elon Musk is just coming over here for a visit, again, he’s an innovator, this is the guy who shot a rocket at thousands of miles and hour with thousands of pounds and as it landed back on the Earth it was grabbed out of midair by a giant robot arm. We want a guy like Elon Musk in the Defense Department to help us come up with creative solutions to the problems that we face or the day. But this article, this article is ridiculous; it’s fake, and I can confirm that on the record.
President Trump weighed in directly.
“Elon Musk will be briefed by the Pentagon about the USA’s top secret plans against China should there be a War,”according to the Failing New York Times, one of the worst and most purposely inaccurate newspapers anywhere in the World. Their FAKE concept for this story is that because Elon does some business in China, that he is very conflicted and would immediately go to top Chinese officials and “spill the beans.” RATINGS CHALLENGED FAKE NEWS CNN immediately picked up on this absolutely ridiculous and false story, which is probably libelous, and went heavy with it. Fortunately, nobody was watching! Maggot Hagerman, the really dumb “scammer” who constantly writes about me for the Times, using anonymous, made up (nonexistent!) sources, and who I haven’t spoken to in ages, is a big part of the Scam. She lead the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, only to realize that she was duped and got it wrong. She owes me a totally discredited Pulitzer Prize for her bad reporting. The Fake News is the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE…And Elon is NOT BEING BRIEFED ON ANYTHING CHINA BY THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR!!!
I guess “Maggot Hagerman” won’t be getting another exclusive interview with Trump for her next book.
What is illustrative is the way the headlines changed after the administration pushed back. This is how they started:
Now the NYT headline reads: Pentagon Set Up Briefing for Musk on Potential War With China. The Wall Street Journal reads: Elon Musk Leaves Pentagon After Discussions About China and Tech.
How did this come to be? In my view, the Department of Defense will be the most difficult agency to reform. We’re seeing nearly daily instances of “malicious compliance,” where exaggerated obedience to order by Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is used to make the orders look ridiculous.
BACKGROUND:
Pete Hegseth Stamps Out One USAF DEI Mutiny but Others Await – RedState
Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell Lays Out the Facts on DoD DEI Removal – RedState
In this case, the New York Times relied on four anonymous sources, only two of whom confirmed the Times’s original headline.
The Pentagon was scheduled on Friday to brief Elon Musk on the U.S. military’s plan for any war that might break out with China, two U.S. officials said on Thursday.
Another official said the briefing would be China focused, without providing additional details. A fourth official confirmed Mr. Musk was to be at the Pentagon on Friday, but offered no details.
As Ezra Cohen points out, one of the bylined reporters, Eric Schmitt, has been used by the Joint Staff to attack Trump in the past. The Joint Staff is the organization that would have ostensibly briefed Musk on US war plans.
The lines of attack used on Musk are that he’s essentially a Chinese agent.
Musk has made positive comments about China in recent years, leading Beijing to hope he could be a conduit to Trump. In 2023, Musk said he was “kind of pro-China” during a conversation about whether Beijing would be helpful in writing global rules about artificial intelligence.
“I have some vested interests in China but honestly, I think China is underrated and I think the people of China are really awesome and there’s a lot of positive energy there,” he said.
That is combined with the assertion that Musk having knowledge of war plans gives his companies an unfair competitive edge and represent a conflict of interest.
Yet Mr. Musk’s extensive business interests make any access to strategic secrets about China a serious problem in the view of ethics experts. Officials have said revisions to the war plans against China have focused on upgrading the plans for defending against space warfare. China has developed a suite of weapons that can attack U.S. satellites.
Mr. Musk’s constellations of low-earth orbit Starlink satellites, which provide data and communications services from space, are considered more resilient than traditional satellites. But he could have an interest in learning about whether or not the United States could defend his satellites in a war with China.
Participating in a classified briefing on the China threat with some of the most senior Pentagon and U.S. military officials would be a tremendously valuable opportunity for any defense contractor seeking to sell services to the military.
Mr. Musk could gain insight into new tools that the Pentagon might need and that SpaceX, where he remains the chief executive, could sell.
All of this is an attempt to hamstring Musk’s ability to cut waste from the Pentagon and streamline processes. It is also an attack on Musk’s relationship with Trump. If Trump can be convinced that Musk represents a political risk, then Musk’s ability to operate disappears. Along with that is the growing attempt to create a narrative that Musk is actually the president and Trump is merely an aging figurehead.
The administration did solid work stamping out this story before it got legs. But it is something they had better get used to as time goes on.
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