Boeing wins battle for $20B fighter jet contract, Trump announces

The Pentagon will award its next-generation Air Force fighter jet contract to Boeing, a deal initially worth more than $20 billion, President Trump announced Friday alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, an F-47 fighter jet, will replace Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor with an aircraft meant to fight alongside drones, Trump announced at the White House.

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

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, which are set to dominate the battlefield in the years ahead, particularly when countering adversaries like China and Russia.

The F-47 — notably matching Trump’s position as the 47th U.S. president — will succeed the F-22, the country’s first fifth-generation fighter that entered service some 20 years ago.

Trump touted the F-47’s “state of the art stealth technologies,” claiming it was “virtually unseeable,” as well as its maneuverability and speed.

He would not say how many jets the U.S. initially hoped to procure or how much each one would cost, but said a fleet “will be built and in the air during my administration” though initial estimates indicate the jet will not be fielded until the 2030s.

Trump also floated the possibility of ally countries purchasing “toned down versions” of the jet.

Hegseth, meanwhile, called the ​​new award a “historic investment in the American military, in the American industrial base, in American industry, that will help revive the warrior ethos inside our military, which we’re doing, rebuild our military,” he said.

The Trump administration is seeking to move the NGAD program forward after it faced delays or possible cutbacks following budget concerns and potentially shifting priorities within the Air Force

Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall last summer paused the program to review its costs and requirements, with the service conducting an internal review of the effort and calling in an outside panel of former senior officials to see if there was still a need for the aircraft.

Both groups concluded the advanced fighter was still required, and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin reportedly pitched the program to Trump.

Allvin, who was also present for the F-47 announcement, said the manner in which the program was crafted puts more control in the hands of the government, so officials are able to update and adapt “at the speed of relevance, at the speed of technology.”

The program’s “family of systems,” to include drones, also means having to deploy less troops, something that takes “maybe months and cost more lives.”

Boeing’s win comes as the aerospace giant is struggling with a number of programs,  including cost overruns, delays, and issues with its VC-25B presidential aircraft — the next Air Force One — as well as its KC-46 Pegasus tanker and T-7A Red Hawk trainer. The firm also has had major issues in its space and commercial sectors.

Boeing also lost out on the F-35 program in 2001, with the contract going to Lockheed. That fighter program, which produces each plane for roughly $80 million, has for years been criticized for its unprecedented size, complexity, ballooning costs, and delayed deliveries.

Updated: 1:05 p.m.