The Pentagon is scheduled on Friday to brief Elon Musk on the U.S. military’s plan for any war that might break out with China, two U.S. officials said Thursday.

Providing Musk access to some of the nation’s most closely guarded military secrets would be a dramatic expansion of his already extensive role as an adviser to President Donald Trump and leader of his effort to slash spending and purge the government of people and policies they oppose.

It would also bring into sharp relief the questions about Musk’s conflicts of interest as he ranges widely across the federal bureaucracy while continuing to run businesses that are major government contractors. In this case, Musk, the billionaire CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, is a leading supplier to the Pentagon and has extensive financial interests in China.

After the New York Times published this article online, Sean Parnell, the chief Defense Department spokesperson, said in a statement: “The Defense Department is excited to welcome Elon Musk to the Pentagon on Friday. He was invited by Secretary Hegseth and is just visiting.”

The meeting reflects the extraordinary dual role played by Musk, who is both the world’s wealthiest man and has been given broad authority by Trump.

Musk has a security clearance, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth can determine who has a need to know about the plan. A choice of sharing lots of technical details with Musk, however, is another matter.

It was unclear what the impetus was for providing Musk such a sensitive briefing. He is not in the military chain of command, nor is he an official adviser to Trump on military matters involving China.

But there is a possible reason Musk might need to know aspects of the war plan. If Musk and his team of cost cutters from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, want to trim the Pentagon budget in a responsible way, they may need to know what weapons systems the Pentagon plans to use in a fight with China.

U.S. detains Indian scholar at Georgetown

The U.S. government has detained an Indian citizen who was studying and teaching at Georgetown University, and said he had been deemed “deportable” for violating the terms of his academic visa.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that the scholar, Badar Khan Suri, could not be deported from the United States for now, pending further litigation.

Suri was detained at his home in Rosslyn, Va., on Monday night, according to his lawyer, Hassan Ahmad. Suri was “awaiting his court date in immigration court” in Alexandria, Louisiana, Ahmad said. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said Suri was “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.” McLaughlin did not provide evidence to support the claim.

Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime, according to Ahmad.

Judge puts hold on Khalil’s college records

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Columbia University and Barnard College to refrain from complying with a Republican-led House committee’s demand for student disciplinary records, at least until he holds a hearing next week on a request by Mahmoud Khalil and other students for a temporary restraining order.

Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student arrested and facing deportation for his role in campus protests against Israel, along with other students identified by pseudonyms, filed a lawsuit earlier this month seeking to block the House Committee on Education and the Workforce from obtaining disciplinary records for students involved in demonstrations.

U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian set a hearing in the case for Tuesday.

CPB bars French scientist over views

A French scientist was prevented from entering the United States this month because of an opinion he expressed about the Trump administration’s policies on academic research, according to the French government.

Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister for higher education and research, described the move as worrying.

Baptiste did not identify the scientist who was turned away but said that the academic was working for France’s publicly funded National Center for Scientific Research and had been traveling to a conference near Houston when border officials stopped him.

The U.S. authorities denied entry to the scientist and then deported him because his phone contained message exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed his “personal opinion” on the Trump administration’s science policies, Baptiste said.

It was not immediately clear what led the border authorities to stop the scientist, why they examined the contents of his phone or what they found objectionable about the conversations.

Customs officers are allowed to search the cellphone, computer, camera or any other electronic device of any travelers crossing the border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

67K Afrikaners voice U.S. refugee interest

The U.S. Embassy in South Africa said Thursday it received a list of more than 67,000 people interested in refugee status in the U.S. under President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate members of a white minority group he claims are victims of racial discrimination by their Black-led government.

The list was given to the embassy by the South African Chamber of Commerce in the U.S., which said it became a point of contact for white South Africans asking about the program announced by the Trump administration last month. The chamber said the list does not constitute official applications.

Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 7 cutting U.S. funding to South Africa and citing “government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”

Trump’s order specifically referred to Afrikaners, a white minority group who are descendants of mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century.

There are 2.7 million Afrikaners in South Africa, which has a population of 62 million. Trump’s decision to offer some white South Africans refugee status went against his larger policy to halt the U.S. refugee resettlement program.

— News service reports