Elon Musk’s mounting influence in Donald Trump’s inner circle has triggered alarm from a former US military chief, who warns the tech billionaire and Trump confidant’s deep ties to Beijing could compromise national security.
Lt Gen Russel Honoré condemned Musk’s web of Chinese business interests – including $1.4bn in state bank loans and a Tesla factory subject to Beijing’s stringent information-sharing laws – in a New York Times op-ed as he questioned the SpaceX chief’s fitness to shape White House policy.
“The fact that Mr Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars to help re-elect Mr Trump does not give the incoming White House licence to ignore these risks,” Honoré wrote.
Three separate bodies – the air force, the defense department’s inspector general, and the undersecretary of defense for intelligence – are reviewing Musk’s failure to disclose meetings with foreign leaders, a requirement under his security clearance.
Whether the concerns will incur bipartisan scrutiny remains to be seen. In 2022, the Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio – Trump’s pick for secretary of state – accused Tesla of being part of the problem of “nationless corporations” that help the Chinese Communist party “cover up genocide and slave labor in the region” in a post on X, and later introduced legislation to restrict federal contracts to companies with said Chinese party connections.
Honoré pointed to Musk’s controversial stance on Taiwan, including his suggestion that it become a “special administrative zone” of China – comments that won praise from Beijing.
The retired general also pointed to reports from the Wall Street Journal of regular communications between Musk and Vladimir Putin since late 2022, which prompted two Democratic senators to demand an investigation into SpaceX’s government contracts.
“If the federal investigations demonstrate deep connections to China and Russia, the federal government should consider revoking Mr. Musk’s security clearance,” Honoré wrote. “It should already be thinking about using alternatives to SpaceX’s launch services.
“The last thing the United States needs is for China to potentially have an easier way of obtaining classified intelligence and national security information,” he wrote.
