President Donald Trump was blindsided by news that Elon Musk would be briefed on secret plans for a potential war with China at the Pentagon in March, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The paper reported on Friday that Trump was “unhappy” when he found out that Musk was set to get the briefing and “frustrated” that he hadn’t received advance notice, especially given Musk’s business interests in the region.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment on the Journal‘s report.
News of the planned briefing broke ahead of Musk’s meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, sparking outcry from the president’s critics, who pointed to Musk’s business in China as a major conflict of interest.
The reports altered what the two men wound up actually discussing. Despite still touching on China, the conversation didn’t include any classified information.
Although Trump publicly dismissed the report as “fake news” and claimed there was never any plan for Musk to be briefed on a China war plan, behind closed doors, he was upset that he had been caught off guard.
Musk, who reportedly requested the briefing himself, at the time dismissed the reporting as “pure propaganda,” but in the same breath threatened “prosecution” against those leaking information to the press.
Musk is a tech billionaire whom Trump tapped to cut waste and fraud from federal spending. However, his blunt approach to cutting thousands of federal jobs has roiled even White House insiders. Trump has reportedly told his Cabinet that Musk will be stepping down from his post atop DOGE within the next several weeks.
Maintaining an informal advisory role to the White House, the world’s richest man is expected to return much of his focus to the businesses he owns, such as Tesla, X, and SpaceX.
Amid blowback to Musk’s moves at DOGE, with his attention seemingly occupied by politics, Tesla’s stock price has plummeted, angering some of its investors.
