President Donald Trump blocked his righthand man Elon Musk from attending a top-secret Pentagon briefing about China.
The Tesla CEO was due to attend the meeting about military plans in the event of a war with China on March 21, according to Axios, but Trump stepped in when details of the briefing leaked to the media.
“What the f— is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn’t go,” Trump said, according to a top official who spoke to Axios.
A meeting at the Pentagon with Musk and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth still went ahead that day, but China wasn’t discussed.
After The New York Times reported on March 20 that the meeting had been set up, Trump dismissed the story as “Fake News” on Truth Social.
“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!!!”
After the meeting on March 21, the president made an attempt to explain why Musk should not be briefed on such matters.
“I certainly wouldn’t want, you know—Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that,” he told reporters at the White House. “But it was such a fake story.”
Another source told Axios that while Trump still values Musk, the president appreciates that his direct link to China through Tesla makes his presence at such meetings improper.
“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.”
Hegseth has suspended two Pentagon officials as part of an investigation into who leaked word of the meeting to The New York Times.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
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