WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump on Friday rejected the notion that billionaire Elon Musk should be given access to top-secret U.S. plans for a potential military conflict with China, even as the president denied a report that such a briefing had been planned to be held at the Pentagon.

“We don’t want to have a potential war with China, but I can tell you, if we did, we’re very well equipped to handle it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “But I don’t want to show that to anybody, but certainly you wouldn’t show it to a businessman who is helping us so much.”

Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and a part-time government staff member, visited the Pentagon on Friday and met privately with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.The Tank

The New York Times reported Thursday that Musk was originally going to visit the Tank, a secure conference room at the building, for a briefing with top military leaders about the China war plan, according to two U.S. officials. A third said Musk was expected to discuss China but provided no details beyond that.

The top-secret briefing was to include Adm. Christopher W. Grady, the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, the head of the military’s Indo-Pacific Command; and Hegseth, briefing Musk on the details of U.S. efforts to counter China in the event of a military conflict, according to the two officials. The discussion was expected to include other matters.

But the Tank visit was called off after the Times’ report on the visit, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Instead, Musk, who has extensive business interests in China, met with Hegseth and Grady in the defense secretary’s office.

Musk ultimately spent more than an hour with Hegseth, a remarkable amount of one-on-one exposure for an executive whose company has contracts with the Defense Department.

Denying Times report

In an Oval Office event Friday with Hegseth to announce a defense contract for a new Air Force fighter jet, the president and the defense secretary called the story “fake.” Hegseth, who on Thursday praised the cuts Musk’s team has made at the Pentagon, insisted the visit was “informal” and was about efficiencies.

Trump made clear he had been caught by surprise by the Times’ report, saying he called his White House chief of staff and Hegseth to ask about it; he said they said it was “ridiculous.” But he also said that Musk should not be made aware of such sensitive information. It was one of the first specific statements from the president about what he would consider a bridge too far for Musk, who has expansive potential conflicts of interest created by a portfolio as a part-time government staff member and adviser.

Trump added, “He’s finding tremendous waste, fraud and abuse, but I certainly wouldn’t want — you know, Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that, but it was such a fake story.”

At the end of Musk’s Pentagon visit Friday, Hegseth personally walked him out of the building. Asked by a Times reporter after Musk’s departure what the two discussed, Hegseth said, “Why would I tell you?” He then walked inside.

Who briefed whom?

One senior defense official, who was not authorized to discuss internal conversations and spoke on background, said Musk was there to brief the Pentagon officials about industrial policy and Musk’s experiences with his companies, the official said.

However, in his appearance later in the Oval Office, Trump said the purpose of Musk’s visit to the Pentagon was his government-shrinking effort.

If a foreign country were to learn how the United States planned to fight a war against them, it could reinforce its defenses and address its weaknesses, making the plans far less likely to succeed.

The top-secret briefing that exists for the China war plan has about 20 to 30 slides that lay out how the United States would fight such a conflict. It covers the plan beginning with the indications and warning of a threat from China to various options on what Chinese targets to hit, over what time period, that would be presented to Trump for decisions, according to officials with knowledge of the plan.

Hegseth received part of the China war plan briefing last week and another part Wednesday, according to officials familiar with the plan. Musk has a security clearance, and Hegseth can determine who has a need to know about the 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.

Musk’s SpaceX is already being paid billions of dollars by the Pentagon and federal spy agencies to help the United States build new military satellite networks to try to confront rising military threats from China.

The company separately has been paid hundreds of millions of dollars by the Pentagon, which relies heavily on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite communications network for military personnel to transmit data worldwide.

Musk has been the focus of an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general over questions about his compliance with his top-secret security clearance. The investigations started last year after some SpaceX employees complained to government agencies that Musk and others at SpaceX were not properly reporting contacts or conversations with foreign leaders.