Tech billionaire and President Trump’s close adviser Elon Musk said the individuals who are leaking “maliciously false information” to news outlets will be “found” and prosecuted.
Musk, whose companies have contracts with the Defense Department (DOD), issued a warning Friday morning after The New York Times reported the SpaceX executive was set to be briefed on U.S. military’s secret plans if a war with China were to take place.
“The New York Times is pure propaganda. Also, I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT. They will be found,” Musk wrote Friday morning on X, a social media platform he also owns.
Trump also pushed back on the Times’ article, hammering the outlet as “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,’” Trump wrote Friday morning on Truth Social.
The Wall Street Journal published a similar article hours later.
Later on Friday, Trump said his administration would not share details of the DOD’s plans for a potential conflict with China, pointing to Musk’s business dealings that, in part, warrant caution.
“I don’t want to show it to anybody. You’re talking about a potential war with China,” Trump told journalists in the Oval Office on Friday. “I don’t want anybody seeing potential war with China. But I can tell you if we did, we’re very well-equipped to handle it.”
“You know, Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible perhaps to that,” the president later said.
Musk was at the Pentagon on Friday where he met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The defense secretary said the meeting was to discuss cost-cutting initiatives and innovation.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has spearheaded the administration’s efforts to cut cost and reduce waste, efforts that have led to firings of thousands of federal government employees.
“Elon Musk provides a lot of capabilities our government and our military rely on, and I’m grateful for that,” Hegseth said Friday. “We welcomed him today to the Pentagon to talk about DOGE, to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations. It was a great informal conversation.”
