Mike Waltz Ousted Over 'Intense Coordination' With Netanyahu on Plotting War With Iran

President Donald Trump's decision to oust his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, was the product of a slow accumulation of frustration with a former Green Beret officer who was seen as far more eager to use military force than his boss in the Oval Office.

Waltz's fate was sealed by his inclusion of a journalist on a sensitive Signal group chat in March. But he had been clashing with other top officials since early in the administration, including over whether to pursue military action against Iran, senior officials and Trump advisers said Friday.

The episode has left some senior White House officials questioning the need for a traditional National Security Council and content to leave Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom Trump on Thursday named as Waltz's interim replacement, in a caretaker role for quite some time — a decision that will likely diminish an institution that has had a powerful role in shaping the foreign policy of modern presidencies. And it sidelines a key figure in the White House with a long track record of favoring military intervention, officials said. Trump has nominated Waltz to be his ambassador to the United Nations, so he will remain in government.

Waltz's troubles built up over time, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles increasingly felt he was not a good fit for the president, according to a senior White House official, a Trump adviser and one additional person familiar with the matter on Friday. They and others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel considerations.

In announcing the shift, Trump on Thursday vowed in a social media post that "together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN."

But Waltz also upset Trump after an Oval Office visit in early February by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when the national security adviser appeared to share the Israeli leader's conviction that the time was ripe to strike Iran, two of the people said.

Waltz appeared to have engaged in intense coordination with Netanyahu about military options against Iran ahead of an Oval Office meeting between the Israeli leader and Trump, the two people said.

Waltz "wanted to take U.S. policy in a direction Trump wasn't comfortable with because the U.S. hadn't attempted a diplomatic solution," according to one of the people.

"It got back to Trump and the president wasn't happy with it," that person said.

Netanyahu's office released a statement Saturday confirming that he met with Waltz ahead of his Oval Office visit with Trump but denying that he had "intensive contact" with him.

A spokesman for Waltz did not respond to a request for comment. Wiles said: "Mike and I have been friends for many years and I have a great deal of respect for him."

[...] The view by some in the administration was that Waltz was trying to tip the scales in favor of military action and was operating hand in glove with the Israelis.

"If Jim Baker was doing a side deal with the Saudis to subvert George H.W. Bush, you'd be fired," a Trump adviser said, referring to Bush's secretary of state. "You can't do that. You work for the president of your country, not a president of another country."

Former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was caught using TM SGNL, an Israeli-modified version of Signal with archiving features, to receive and relay potentially classified info.

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Tech professionals have moved between companies like TeleMessage and some of the leading Israeli spyware firms. For example, Alon Falah, a technical support manager at TeleMessage until 2021, left the company to join NSO Group, according to his LinkedIn profile. Another employee, Itzhak Demoza, joined Telemessage last year after a stint at Cellebrite, maker of hardware and software widely used by law enforcement to extract data from smartphones.

TeleMessage's founder and top employees likewise share Israeli military intelligence backgrounds.

Guy Levit, TeleMessage's CEO, "served as the head of the planning and development of one of the IDF's Intelligence elite technical units" from 1996 until 1999, according to his official biography.

Gil Shapira, TeleMessage's Vice President Business Development, served in the "Israeli Air Force from 1993 – 1999 as a computer programmer, project manager and team leader," according to his bio.

Nir Elperin, the Vice President of Corporate Strategy "served 4 years in the Elite Military Intelligence Unit of the Israeli Defense Forces," according to his bio, where he "commanded teams of computer experts."

A mobile researcher at TeleMessage, Aviv Tzitayat worked for Israeli Military Intelligence as recently as February 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile. There, he worked as a "Reverse Engineer and Software Developer."

Another employee, Maor Ben Abu, previously served with Unit 8200, a group within Israeli military intelligence specializing in clandestine operations, signals intelligence, and counterintelligence. The unit has been compared to the National Security Agency, and its graduates frequently go on to work in the cyber warfare industry.

Message to IRAN:

We see your LETHAL support to The Houthis. We know exactly what you are doing.

You know very well what the U.S. Military is capable of — and you were warned. You will pay the CONSEQUENCE at the time and place of our choosing.

— Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (@SecDef) May 1, 2025