US President Donald Trump has denied reports that Elon Musk would see top secret US plans for a possible war with China, saying that his billionaire ally's links with Beijing raised potential conflicts of interest.
The rare acknowledgment of Musk's dueling roles in business and government came on Friday as Trump pushed back against media reports saying the Space X and Tesla owner would receive a Pentagon briefing on its China strategy.
The reports fanned concern about the influence of the world's richest man in the White House as an unelected, South African-born tycoon who has become Trump's closest advisor.
Musk did visit the Pentagon on Friday, but Trump insisted he was "there for DOGE, not for China" — referring to Musk's Department for Government Efficiency, which is expanding its cost-cutting drive to the defense department.
"I don’t want to show it to anybody. You’re talking about a potential war with China," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about the possibility of sharing the war plan with Musk.
"Certainly you wouldn’t show it to a businessman... Elon has businesses in China and he would be susceptible perhaps to that."
Musk's automaker Tesla produces some of its electric vehicles at a huge so-called gigafactory in Shanghai and is trying to compete with fast-growing Chinese manufacturers.
The entrepreneur has become a cult figure in China and has fostered ties with its leadership. He has suggested Taiwan should ultimately become part of mainland China.
In the United States, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Musk has no conflicts of interest, even as Musk leads a harsh overhaul of US government agencies that in some cases his companies have dealings with.
Musk's SpaceX has US government defence contracts worth billions of dollars, including for launching rockets and for the use of the Starlink satellite service.
Trump has recently further blurred the line by promoting Tesla cars after attacks by vandals over Musk's links to the White House.
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Trump trashes NYT report
Earlier on Friday, Trump denied a report in the New York Times that claimed Musk will be briefed by the Pentagon on military plans for a potential war with China.
"The Fake News is at it again, this time the Failing New York Times. They said, incorrectly, that Elon Musk is going to the Pentagon tomorrow to be briefed on any potential war with China. How ridiculous?" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
"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!!!" said the president.
Later, in another post, Trump called the newspaper "one of the worst and most purposely inaccurate" and suggested their low ratings caused them to write this "ridiculous" story.
He also targeted Maggie Haberman, one of the writers of the story, and accused her of constantly using "nonexistent" anonymous sources for news pieces about himself.
"I haven’t spoken to (Haberman) in ages, (she) is a big part of the Scam." "The Fake News is the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE," he added.
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Trade tensions with China
The ongoing trade tensions between China and the United States have intensified in recent weeks.
"If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end," the Chinese Embassy in the US said in a post on March 5 on X (formerly Twitter), quoting from the official statement, also posted on X, from Chinese Foreign Ministry a day earlier.
Some analysts see the latest Chinese statement — especially its explicit readiness for "any type of war" and the reference to "fighting till the end" — as unprecedented, marking Beijing’s most aggressive stance yet in the China-US trade war and signalling a strategic escalation.
