• GOP senators got a hold of Elon Musk's cell phone number this week.
• They don't want to talk about it.
• Having a direct line to Musk is a hot commodity in the age of DOGE.

Republican senators just got their hands on Elon Musk's cell phone number, giving them a direct line to the man who's been reshaping the federal bureaucracy at President Donald Trump's behest.

Many of them don't want to talk about it.

"I'm not gonna answer that question, okay? What's your next one?" Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas said. "I don't think it's anyone's business."

Business Insider approached half a dozen Republican senators at the Capitol on Thursday to ask them if they've had any text conversations with Musk, or whether they anticipate doing so in the future. Only one — Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina — confirmed CNN's reporting that Musk gave out his number during a lunch with most Senate Republicans on Wednesday.

"I haven't texted with him. I don't have a need to do that," Tillis told BI, adding that if DOGE is "going into any areas where we're looking at potential job impacts or other impacts, I know I can give him a call."

Having the power to call up Musk is a precious commodity in the age of DOGE, with the promise of influencing the man who's been working with a team of lieutenants to shutter whole agencies, access sensitive systems, and choke off streams of federal funding — all without the formal input of Congress. At times, his power has seemed to exceed that of Cabinet secretaries and rival that of Trump himself.

Perhaps that's why some GOP senators don't want to even acknowledge whether they were offered his number.

"I'm not getting into all that. If you have a policy question, I'm happy to answer that," Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told BI. "That's all I got for you. Sorry."

"I'm not gonna confirm or deny that," Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri told BI. "I've met with him twice in the last two weeks. He's been very accessible."

There's also an awareness of the power that Musk — not just the de facto head of DOGE, but the owner of what may be the world's most important communication platform, X — holds relative to them. And some of them don't hide their own sense of awe at the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.

Sen. Ted Cruz did not confirm or deny that Musk gave out his number on Wednesday. But the Texas Republican said he's had Musk's number for years and that he's a "good friend." When asked what the billionaire businessman is like over text, Cruz launched into a two-and-a-half minute-long disquisition about Musk's brilliance and business acumen.

"If you assume that intelligence is distributed on a bell curve there are roughly 8 billion people on Planet Earth, somebody has to be at the bleeding edge of the bell curve, and his name is Elon," Cruz said. "I have been blessed to know many really smart people. I've never met anyone remotely like Elon Musk."

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — who said his own hypothetical text communication with Musk would "remain private" — said that he and his colleagues were being coy about having Musk's number because they're "sensitive about people having access" and the potential for "abuse."

Then he also offered some unsolicited praise for Musk.

"I think he's a remarkable individual. He's probably one of the more brilliant, accomplished, effective human beings ever to walk the face of the Earth," Johnson said, adding that he's "very appreciative of the fact that he's willing to devote his very expensive time" to DOGE.

Wednesday's lunch with GOP senators was just one of several meetings that Musk has had with congressional Republicans in the last two weeks. Later that day, he met with a larger group of House Republicans, plus a smaller meeting with the Republicans on the DOGE subcommittee. That's on top of a meeting last Thursday with the Senate DOGE Caucus and a meeting on Tuesday night with House Speaker Mike Johnson.

It comes as some Republicans grow anxious about the lack of congressional input over DOGE's spending decisions, with some urging the White House to send federal spending cuts to Congress in the form of a "recission" bill, as required under the Impoundment Control Act. Sen. Johnson told BI he wanted to see votes on recissions "every few weeks."

For now, it appears that Musk is only giving out his cellphone number to senators. Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, the chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, told BI that Musk didn't read out his number during his meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday night.

"I probably would have been writing it down if he did," Harris said, even as he insisted that he didn't feel slighted. "He's readily available, he's a day-to-day person who's dedicated to bringing the Trump agenda to fruition. So I'm perfectly happy with that. I don't need a phone number."

Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, a Republican DOGE subcommittee member, told BI that he's "not going to comment" on whether he had Musk's number. But he also said he wouldn't be texting him.

"I'm not going to be one of those that bothers him," Burchett said.

• Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt co-authored a paper warning the US about the dangers of an AI Manhattan Project.
• In the paper, Schmidt, Dan Hendrycks, and Alexandr Wang push for a more defensive approach.
• The authors suggest the US sabotage rival projects, rather than advance the AI frontier alone.

Some of the biggest names in AI tech say an AI "Manhattan Project" could have a destabalizing effect on the US, rather than help safeguard it.

The dire warning came from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Center for AI Safety director Dan Hendrycks, and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. They coauthored a policy paper titled "Superintelligence Strategy" published on Wednesday.

In the paper, the tech titans urge the US to stay away from an aggressive push to develop superintelligent AI, or AGI, which the authors say could provoke international retaliation. China, in particular, "would not sit idle" while the US worked to actualize AGI, and "risk a loss of control," they write.

The authors write that circumstances similar to the nuclear arms race that birthed the Manhattan Project — a secretive initiative that ended in the creation of the first atom bomb — have developed around the AI frontier.

In November 2024, for example, a bipartisan congressional committee called for a "Manhattan Project-like" program, dedicated to pumping funds into initiatives that could help the US beat out China in the race to AGI. And just a few days before the authors released their paper, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said the country is already "at the start of a new Manhattan Project."

"The Manhattan Project assumes that rivals will acquiesce to an enduring imbalance or omnicide rather than move to prevent it," the authors write. "What begins as a push for a superweapon and global control risks prompting hostile countermeasures and escalating tensions, thereby undermining the very stability the strategy purports to secure."

It's not just the government subsidizing AI advancements, either, according to Schmidt, Hendrycks, and Wang — private corporations are developing "Manhattan Projects" of their own. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, has said he loses sleep over the possibility of ending up like Robert Oppenheimer.

"Currently, a similar urgency is evident in the global effort to lead in AI, with investment in AI training doubling every year for nearly the past decade," the authors say. "Several 'AI Manhattan Projects' aiming to eventually build superintelligence are already underway, financed by many of the most powerful corporations in the world."

The authors argue that the US already finds itself operating under conditions similar to mutually assured destruction, which refers to the idea that no nation with nuclear weapons will use its arsenal against another, for fear of retribution. They write that a further effort to control the AI space could provoke retaliation from rival global powers.

Instead, the paper suggests the US could benefit from taking a more defensive approach — sabotaging "destabilizing" AI projects via methods like cyberattacks, rather than rushing to perfect their own.

In order to address "rival states, rogue actors, and the risk of losing control" all at once, the authors put forth a threefold strategy. Deterring via sabotage, restricting access of chips and "weaponizable AI systems" to "rogue actors," and guaranteeing US access to AI chips via domestic manufacturing.

Overall, Schmidt, Hendrycks, and Wang push for balance, rather than what they call the "move fast and break things" strategy. They argue that the US has an opportunity to take a step back from the urgent rush of the arms race, and shift to a more defensive strategy.

"By methodically constraining the most destabilizing moves, states can guide AI toward unprecedented benefits rather than risk it becoming a catalyst of ruin," the authors write.