President Trump Announces $20 Billion Fighter Jet Contract

President Trump announced Friday that the Pentagon will award Boeing the contract for its next-generation fighter jet.

Trump announced the contract, initially worth approximately $20 billion, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“The F-47 will be the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built. An experimental version of the plane has secretly been flying for almost 5 years and we’re confident that it massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation,” Trump said.

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.@POTUS: “The F-47 will be the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built. An experimental version of the plane has secretly been flying for almost 5 years and we’re confident that it massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation.” pic.twitter.com/J33fjUogs5

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 21, 2025

The Hill reports:

Boeing and Lockheed were competing for the engineering and manufacturing development phase of the contract for the sixth-generation fighter jet, a winner-take-all approach that grants the victor hundreds of billions of dollars over the program’s lifetime.

Designs from both companies for the aircraft were finalized last year.

The move is in line with the Pentagon’s new strategy focused on countering drones, or autonomous unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), which are set to dominate the battlefield in the years ahead, particularly when countering adversaries like China and Russia.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have awarded Boeing the $20 billion contact for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Program, to fully develop and produce a sixth-generation replacement for the U.S. Air Force’s F-22 “Raptor” Stealth… pic.twitter.com/nwGAFUdl9G

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 21, 2025

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President Donald Trump announces Boeing has been awarded a contract to design and build the US’s next-generation fighter jet.

The new fighter is expected to enter service in the 2030s if everything goes according to plan https://t.co/JCzoHvwyZK pic.twitter.com/CfxQQymjfE

— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) March 21, 2025

From the Associated Press:

Known as Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, the manned jet will serve as quarterback to a fleet of future drone aircraft designed to be able to penetrate the air defenses of China and any other potential foes. The initial contract to proceed with production on a version for the Air Force version is worth an estimated $20 billion.

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Trump, who announced the award at the White House with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force leadership, said the new fighter would be named the F-47. Gen. David Allvin, chief of staff of the Air Force, said, “We’re going to write the next generation of modern aerial warfare with this.”

Hegseth said the future fleet “sends a very clear, direct message to our allies that we’re not going anywhere.”

Critics have questioned the cost and the necessity of the program as the Pentagon is still struggling to fully produce its current most advanced jet, the F-35, which is expected to cost taxpayers more than $1.7 trillion over its lifespan. In addition, the Pentagon’s future stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, will have many of the same cutting edge technologies in advanced materials, AI, propulsion and stealth.

More than 1,100 F-35s have already been built for the U.S. and multiple international partners.

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