President-elect Donald Trump has asked Boeing (NYSE: BA) to quote a competing price for its F-18 Super Hornet fighter aircraft citing cost overruns in the Lockheed Martin-built (NYSE: LMT) F-35 jet, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
Anthony Capaccio and Alex Wayne write Trump made the announcement in a Twitter post Thursday a day after he met the CEOs of both companies and other Defense Department officials in Florida to discuss the F-35 program costs and Boeing™s proposed Air Force One replacement program.
Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson said in a statement that the company would advance efforts to cut the fighter jet™s costs, according to Bloomberg.
Dennis Muilenburg, chairman, president and CEO of Boeing, said the company will work to build the next pair of presidential aircraft for less than $4 billion.
Lockheed started development work on the $379 billion F-35 program in 2001 to replace the older jets of the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps and plans to produce over 3, 000 F-35s for the U.S. and allied countries, Wayne and Capaccio report.
Emily Stephenson and Jeffrey Dastin also report for Reuters that F-35 sales accounted for 20 percent of the company™s $46.1 billion revenue in 2015.
Lockheed™s shares dropped 2 percent and Boeing™s shares climbed 0.7 percent in after-hours trading following Trump™s social media post, Reuters added.
