Donald Trump on Friday awarded a multibillion-dollar contract to build the next-generation US stealth fighter jet to American aerospace giant Boeing.
“After a rigorous and thorough competition between some of America’s top aerospace companies, the Air Force is going to be awarding the contract for the next-generation air dominance platform to Boeing,” Trump said, adding it would be “the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built”.
The fighter jet will replace the F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter deployed in Syria and Iraq from 2014, and will be known as the F-47, Trump said as he made the announcement in the Oval Office alongside defence secretary Pete Hegseth.
Many of the details of the programme are classified and Trump refused to reveal the cost of building the aircraft, saying “it would give way to some of the technology and some of the size of the plant”.
Budget figures released last year suggest the Air Force planned to spend as much as $20bn on research and development for the F-47 through 2029.
Boeing has a history of developing fighter jets, including the F-15 and the F-22, in partnership with Lockheed Martin, and has already bet billions on the project, known as the Next Generation Air Dominance programme.
Its stock was up 5.3 per cent at $182 after Trump’s announcement.
Boeing built new production facilities in St Louis in hopes of winning the F-47 contract. Its success is a much-needed victory for the company after it lost the F-35 contract to Lockheed Martin in 2001 and as production of the KC-46 aerial refuelling tanker and the next-generation Air Force One has suffered from cost overruns and delivery and performance issues.
Trump added that the US had already received interest in the F-47 from its allies and expected to sell them to some international partners in future.
“Our allies are calling constantly, they want to buy them also,” he told reporters.
The Air Force issued a formal request for proposals for the full-scale development of the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter programme two years ago. The F-47 is expected to fly with drones that the military is developing separately.
Executing any large defence contract is a challenge, but Boeing will face additional scrutiny from Trump’s billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who was at the Pentagon earlier on Friday to discuss cost-cutting at the department, according to the president.
Musk has publicly criticised the F-35 and has questioned the need for manned fighter jets due to significant advances in drone technology.
“We welcomed him today to the Pentagon to talk about Doge [the Department of Government Efficiency], to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations. It was a great informal conversation,” Hegseth said. He added reports that Musk would view US plans for war with China were “fake”.
