Elon Musk sparks major concern amid reports he will lead investigation into US war plan message leak
Earlier this week, a journalist who was accidentally added to a group chat, which saw defence officials in the Trump administration discuss the United States', leaked exactly what was said in the messages.
According to a report in the Atlantic published Monday (24 March), the outlet's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally invited into a Signal chat group with over a dozen senior Trump administration officials, including the Vice President JD Vance, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, and several others.
Goldberg said he received the Signal - an open-source encrypted messaging service - invitation to 'Houthi PC small group' from Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, who was also in the group chat.
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The material in the text chain 'contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing', Goldberg reported.
"The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen," he wrote.
"I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming.
"The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defence, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m."
The White House has since confirmed the leak with national security council spokesperson, Brian Hughes, saying in a statement: "This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain."
It has since been reported that Elon Musk, who spearheads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is now helping lead an investigation into the Signal chat leak.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Wednesday (26 March) press conference that 'the National Security Council, the White House Counsel's Office, and also, yes, Elon Musk's team', will be leading the investigation into the Signal leak.
She continued: "Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat. Again to take responsibility and to ensure this can never happen again."
The news has since sparked major concern with many taking to social media to share their worry.
"How is a private citizen able to lead an investigation with National Defence implications? WTF?" penned one X user.
A second asked: "Isn't this the FBI's job or something? Like how is this a private citizen's job? This is insane."
"Is that a joke or are you serious?" echoed a third while another lamented: "Good lord, the blind leading the blind."
And a final X user added: "Someone needs to challenge this decision."
Topics: Elon Musk, Celebrity, Politics, US News, World News
Rhiannon Ingle