1 of 4 | Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth welcomes Elon Musk at the Pentagon on Friday. Photo by U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Madelyn Keech
March 21 (UPI) — Elon Musk visited the Pentagon on Friday for a briefing on his Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to slash costs, including the workforce.
President Donald Trump disputed a New York Times report and later by other media outlets that the meeting would include a discussion of plans for a potential war with China.
“He’s there for DOGE, not there for China, and if you ever mentioned China, I think he’d walk out of the room,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office later in the morning.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also denied the reports.
“We welcomed him today to the Pentagon to talk about DOGE, to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations,” Hegseth told reporters at the Oval Office after he and Trump announced production of a next-generation fighter jet. “It was a great, informal conversation. The rest of that reporting was fake. There was no war plans, there was no Chinese war plans. There was no secret plans.”
Musk arrived at the Pentagon at 9 a.m. and his visit lasted about one hour, NBC News reported.
He told reporters as he was walking with Hegseth: “It’s always a great meeting.”
“I’ve been here before, you know,” Musk added as they both laughed.
Musk’s companies, including SpaceX, Starlink and Tesla have contracts in the federal government, including with Space Force and the Air Force. He wore a U.S. Air Force Academy jacket with his name on it at the session.
The New York Times, citing two sources, reported the meeting would focus on what the military might do if any war were to break out with China.
The Washington Post reported that the briefing with Musk was scheduled by Hegseth.
According to The New York Times, the top secret information that Musk would receive includes approximately 20 to 30 slides that explain how the United States would fight China during conflict, such as how the United States would recognize a threat, and how strikes against China would play out and what options President Donald Trump would have at his disposal.
The meeting was slated for a secure conference room known as The Tank, where high-level meetings of members of the Joint Chiefs, their senior staff and visiting military commanders take place, the Times reported.
Hegseth posted to the official secretary of defense X account that “The NYT should immediately retract this fake narrative” and to his personal X page that he and other Pentagon officials “look forward to welcoming” Musk to the Pentagon and that it’s not about military plans involving China but rather an “informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies [and] smarter production.”
Musk posted to X Friday that “I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT,” and that “they will be found.”
Earlier this week, the Pentagon said 50,000-60,000 civilian jobs will be slashed. That’s a 5%-8% defense workforce reduction.
But after courts halted many government firings, the Pentagon will turn to voluntary workforce reductions to eliminate the jobs. Some 5,400 probationary employees will be fired and so far 21,000 civilian employees have resigned, and they will be paid through Sept. 30.
There are 950,000 civilian employees working in the Department of Defense with a total workforce of 2.1 million, including service members, making it the largest agency in the federal government,