Elon Musk is visiting the Pentagon today after he reportedly requested a private briefing on the U.S. military’s war plans with China, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post reported Thursday.
The Times cited two unnamed officials in its initial report, which it later updated: “Hours after news of the planned meeting was published by The New York Times, Pentagon officials and President Trump denied that the session would be about military plans involving China. ‘China will not even be mentioned or discussed,’ Mr. Trump said in a late-night social media post.”
WSJ: “The Trump adviser had been originally set to receive a top-secret briefing on [the] war plan but revelations of the meeting caused a change of course.”
The Post had also been told that Musk’s briefing would include information about China, a major market for the billionaire carmaker. “In seeking friendly governments for his business interests, Musk has cozied up to Beijing to broaden the market and production for his Tesla electric vehicles. That relationship poses a problem for the Pentagon, which under Trump in 2018 established China as its primary adversary,” the Post continued.
NYT: A China briefing “would also bring into sharp relief the questions about Mr. Musk’s conflicts of interest as he ranges widely across the federal bureaucracy while continuing to run businesses that are major government contractors.”
Developing: NGAD decision coming today? Bloomberg’s Anthony Capaccio says Trump will announce the winning bid to build the Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter jet Friday at 11 a.m. ET. Lockheed Martin and Boeing are the finalists.
Background: The Air Force had paused the program last summer due to soaring cost projections that put the price of the sixth-gen fighter at three times the cost of an F-35, Defense One’s Audrey Decker reported two weeks ago. This led to an internal study to look at alternative options. In January, then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said there is “value” to building a crewed sixth-gen jet, but emphasized that other priorities need to be funded first.
Worth noting: As the U.S. deliberations continue, China is building its own sixth-generation aircraft. Read more from Decker, here.
Can one U.S. warship illustrate the woeful state of American shipbuilding? The Wall Street Journal thinks so, and invites you to learn the ongoing saga of how the Navy’s frigate USS Constellation is “years behind schedule and millions over budget.” Read that deep dive, co-bylined by former D Brief-er Gordon Lubold, here.
Additional reading:
- “Saltzman: US Can Overcome Hurdles to Develop Space-Based Interceptors,” Air and Space Forces Magazine reported Thursday;
- “Putting Missile Interceptors In Space Critical To Defending U.S. Citizens: Space Force Boss,” The War Zone reported Thursday;
- “Saltzman: Space Force in ‘pretty good spot’ regarding DoD funding shift,” Breaking Defense reported Thursday;
- “Air Force May Need to Extend the KC-135 Service Life: AMC Boss,” Air and Space Forces Magazine reported Thursday as well;
- “AMC: KC-135 Stratotankers may be giving gas well past 2050,” Inside Defense reported Friday;
- And “GOP defense appropriators spell out CR funding levels for weapons. Will the DoD listen?” Breaking Defense asked Wednesday.
Welcome to this Friday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2006, Twitter was founded.
Trump 2.0
The British and German governments have issued travel warnings for citizens visiting the U.S. after several were detained as part of Trump’s increasingly aggressive anti-immigration policies. Other Canadian, British, and French citizens have also been detained for days and weeks at a time since Trump took office two months ago. Axios has more on them, here.
Students in California have also been warned against traveling abroad for spring break, with UCLA advising foreign-born students “re-entry requirements may change while you are away, impacting your return.”
Related reading:
- “Detentions of European tourists at US borders spark fears of traveling to America,” the Associated Press reported Friday from San Diego;
- “Here are the names of the Venezuelans deported by the U.S. to El Salvador,” via CBS News, reporting Thursday;
- And immigration expert Adam Isaacson reviewed the list obtained by CBS, and composed this report afterward, “Who Did the Trump Administration Just Send to El Salvador’s Dungeons?”
Developing: Trump is floating sending Americans to El Salvador’s new prison for terrorists, the same one the White House sent 238 male Venezuelan citizens to on March 15—very possibly against a federal judge’s orders.
Trump issued the threat on social media Friday morning, describing three people who damaged Tesla cars as “sick terrorist thugs” who he said should get 20-year jail sentences for throwing Molotov cocktails at Tesla properties in South Carolina, Colorado, and Oregon. Trump’s Department of Justice announced charges for the three on Thursday, with Attorney General Pamela Bondi declaring, “Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.”
“Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador,” Trump wrote as their cases proceed through the courts.
Possibly coming soon: A second round of mass layoffs across the federal government. Reuters reports “All U.S. government agencies have submitted their plans” for such layoffs, which Trump ordered to be drawn up by March 13.
“No deadline has been set for completing the review,” but one source told Reuters “the White House would like to see the entire process wrapped up by the end of September.” Pentagon officials have said the Defense Department will seek to cut five to eight percent of its civilian workforce.
Panning out: “So far, DOGE has overseen cuts of more than 100,000 jobs across the 2.3 million-member federal civilian workforce. Its sweeping efforts have become mired in dozens of lawsuits challenging the firing of thousands of probationary workers, the abrupt shuttering of several federal agencies and access to sensitive computer systems given to DOGE staffers.” Read on, here.
Related reading: “FBI scales back staffing and tracking of domestic terrorism probes,” Reuters reported separately on Friday.
New: Net-negative support for DOGE. A recent Fox poll revealed just 40% of Americans “approve of the job Elon Musk is doing working with DOGE, while 58% disapprove.” Another 65% say they “worry that not enough thought and planning has gone into the cuts” executed by Musk and his team of young developers.
For what it’s worth, “93% of Democrats disapprove, along with 70% of Independents and 20% of Republicans,” Fox reports. Read more, here.
Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot has been sidelined after defense officials—spurred by Trump’s campaign against diversity—courted controversy after removing an article about the military background of Hall of Fame baseball player Jackie Robinson, the Washington Post reported Thursday. “Ullyot, a public affairs official who also held senior communications roles during President Donald Trump’s first term in office, is expected to take another role within the Defense Department working on “‘special projects,’” Dan Lamothe of the Post writes.
Europe and Ukraine
France says it will reopen a fourth nuclear air base as Trump officials signal declining interest in European security. The base is known as Luxeuil-Saint-Sauveur, which Politico reports is “less than 200 kilometers from the German border.” France had hosted nuclear weapons there as recently as 2011.
Macron: “If we are to avoid war, our country and our continent must continue to defend, equip and prepare themselves,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday. He also promised to acquire more Rafales from Dassault Aviation, though he did not say how many. More, here.
Another defense call-back for Paris: “Ukraine war leads France to restore gunpowder production,” Reuters reported Friday from the country’s southwest region.
Commentary: Nuclear analyst Ankit Panda argues in Defense One that France and Britain must offer the continent the deterrence assurances as the U.S. commitment wanes—or see other countries begin their own weapons programs.
German lawmakers just authorized “€1 trillion in civilian and defense investments to jolt the region’s economy and reduce its military reliance on the U.S.,” the Wall Street Journal reported Friday from Berlin.
Notable: “The package’s scale dwarfs a €158 billion defense fund floated by the European Commission this month to support military spending in the European Union and fund future help for Ukraine.”
Expert reax: “Germany is giving itself the means to become a military force to match its economic and strategic weight. That’s a sea change,” François Heisbourg told the Journal.
Additional reading:
- “Top Russian official meets North Korean leader in latest Pyongyang visit,” AP reported Friday from Seoul;
- See also, “This AP map shows sabotage across Europe that has been blamed on Russia and its proxies,” AP reported separately on Friday;
- And don’t miss, “The hunt for Red October in warmer oceans – Climate change and anti-submarine warfare,” which NATO researchers published Wednesday.
The post The D Brief: Musk visits Pentagon; NGAD decision?; Navy’s frigate mess; Germany ups spending; And a bit more. appeared first on Defense One.
