A retired army general argued that billionaire Elon Musk poses a threat to national security due to his ties to China in a blistering op-ed published in The New York Times on Sunday.
“Mr. Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, face federal reviews from the Air Force, the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General and the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security for failing to provide details of Mr. Musk’s meetings with foreign leaders and other potential violations of national-security rules,” wrote former Lt. General Russel Honoré.
“These alleged infractions are just the beginning of my worries,” he added.
Honoré pointed to the $1.4 billion Tesla borrowed from the Chinese government to build a factory in Shanghai, which was responsible for more than half of Tesla’s 2024 deliveries. He added that financial lending is rare for the communist government that can legally “demand intelligence” from any company doing business in the country.
“This means Mr. Musk’s business dealings in China could require him to hand over sensitive classified information, learned either through his business interests or his proximity to President-elect Donald Trump," Honoré wrote.
In the last year, Musk's influence over the federal government has expanded past business endeavors. He’s become one of the president-elect’s closest allies and last month was tapped to co-chair Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with Vivek Ramaswamy. Despite now being colleagues, Ramaswamy once thought Musk was in “China’s pocket,” Honoré points out.
“I have no reason to think Elon won’t jump like a circus monkey when Xi Jinping calls in the hour of need,” Ramaswamy said in 2023.
Though Ramaswamy has since taken back this statement, Honoré writes that this fear isn’t far-fetched. He points to numerous instances where Musk praised or defended the Chinese government, including his argument that Taiwan should be a “special administrative region.” Musk was also the first foreigner to write for the magazine China Cyberspace, which is run by the state’s internet censorship agency.
“The last thing the United States needs is for China to potentially have an easier way of obtaining classified intelligence and national security information,” Honoré writes.
But with Musk’s proximity to the White House only growing closer in the coming months, Honoré questioned whether Trump will even consider Musk’s threat.
“The question now is whether the incoming Trump administration will take this risk seriously," he wrote.
