[ad_1]
Looks like President Donald Trump might be finally losing patience with his multibillionaire adviser Elon Musk. According to Axios, the president personally blocked his onetime “first buddy” from attending a top-secret Pentagon briefing about the military’s plans for China.
Musk was slated to join the March meeting, but when details leaked to the press, Trump reportedly snapped.
“What the fuck is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn’t go,” Trump said, according to a top official who recounted the event to Axios.
The same official tried to downplay the snub.
“POTUS still very much loves Elon, but there are some red lines,” they said. “Elon has a lot of business in China, and he has good relations there, and this briefing just wasn’t the right thing.”
Sure.
The leak in question came from The New York Times, which accurately reported that Musk was set to receive a classified Pentagon briefing on U.S. war plans for China—a stunning national security breach considering Musk holds no public office and has deep financial ties to Beijing.
Even Trump seemed to realize how bad it looked and publicly claimed Musk’s business interests made his presence inappropriate.
“Elon has businesses in China,” Trump told reporters in March. “And he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that.”
So, while Musk did meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that day, Axios reports China war plans weren’t discussed. Instead, the focus was China’s growing military threat, which is still a wild level of access for a private citizen.
When the Times’ story broke, Trump called their reporting “completely untrue” and slammed the outlet as “Fake News.” Musk also denied it, calling the piece “pure propaganda” on X.
“I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT,” Musk wrote. “They will be found.”
He might be getting his wish. This week, Hegseth suspended at least three Pentagon officials in the wake of an internal leak probe related not just to the Musk briefing, but to sensitive operations in the Panama Canal, the Red Sea, and Ukraine.
The irony? Hegseth himself reportedly discussed wartime strategy in a Signal group chat while unaware that a reporter was present, and faced no punishment.
Hegseth’s crackdown is part of a broader White House effort to hunt down leakers. Earlier this month, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard formed a task force to investigate internal leaks. And back in February, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem threatened lie detector tests for her own staff.
Still, the Axios story is telling. It suggests Musk’s grip on the White House might not be as ironclad as it once seemed—a welcome sign after months of him acting like Trump’s co-president. Since January, the obscenely rich Tesla and SpaceX CEO has gutted key federal agencies and helped purge tens of thousands of government workers under the banner of “efficiency” and rooting out “waste” and “fraud.” He’s also clashed with other Cabinet members along the way.
Talk of a rift has been swirling ever since Musk helped tank a GOP special election in Wisconsin, despite sinking $25 million into the race. The president and Musk dismissed those reports as more “fake news,” but this could mark the beginning of a real break.
We can only hope.
Campaign Action
[ad_2]
Source link
