Elon Musk holds Pentagon talks, wants leakers prosecuted

Billionaire, Elon Musk on Friday took his campaign to cut the US federal government agencies into uncharted waters, holding an unprecedented top-level meeting at the Pentagon.

Musk called for the prosecution of any Defense Department officials leaking what described as maliciously false information about his visit.

Musk, whose businesses have a number of Defense Department contracts, reportedly met the US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for 80 minutes in his first such talks at the Pentagon, which is said to be responsible for a large chunk of federal government spending.

At the time of filing this report, it was unclear whether the US generals joined that meeting virtually.

The New York Times had reported that Musk would be briefed on secret war plans for China, something Musk, President Donald Trump and others denied.

Musk also called the report pure propaganda, urging legal action against leakers.

“I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to New York Times. They will be found,” he wrote on X before the Hegseth meeting.

According to a New York Times spokesperson, leak investigations are meant to chill communications between journalists and their sources and undermine the ability of a free press to bring out vital information that may otherwise be hidden.

Hegseth's chief of staff, in a memo released late on Friday, called for an investigation into unauthorized disclosures of national security information, to include the potential use of a polygraph tests.

At the White House after the meeting, Trump said he did not want to show the United States' plans for a potential war with China to anybody and hinted at Musk's potential conflict of interest.

“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. Elon has businesses in China, and he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that,” Trump said.