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.
