Donald Trump’s broadside against the defense industry might sound like a populist cry targeting wealthy CEOs.
But the president’s tirade was actually building for months, according to industry executives and administration officials, as top Pentagon officials grew frustrated with an industry that’s failed to deliver vital weapons’ systems on time and on budget.
His chastising of major contractors’ slow production has resonated with lawmakers in both parties and in emerging tech companies, who have decried the plodding, calcified nature of the process — even if Trump’s anger can do little to change the system. If he wants better performance, industry insiders say, he needs to stop jawboning about CEO pay and let the Pentagon reform government contracting to allow more flexible purchases and start-ups.
“Those guys make money when there’s more cost, when there’s more time, more materials going to the thing they’re building,” said a defense industry executive. “The president is just observing symptoms that prove that. We don’t need senior leaders getting into all the details of acquisition reform.”
So-called prime defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and RTX (formerly Raytheon) — which Trump called out by name in his extended missives Wednesday on TruthSocial — often operate on slimmer margins than other publicly traded companies and can profit from projects going over budget. Those companies have also used stock buybacks that can drive up their value and profits.
An executive order released Wednesday — which threatens to nix Pentagon contracts for companies that can’t speed up production and cut bonuses to executives and shareholders — has been in the works since the fall. It builds on the first Trump administration’s frustrations about the defense industry’s tepid pace and a risk-averse, bureaucratic contracting process that can cause yearslong delays.
The order didn’t entail how it would suddenly transform a complex, specialized production process system, which has bedeviled numerous administrations. And any attempts to supersede shareholders or ditch billion-dollar contracts with companies are bound to trigger lawsuits.
But the president’s comments, and the subsequent order, reinforce the Pentagon’s campaign to press the defense industry to build faster. Defense Department officials, in recent months, have pushed quicker weapons production to replace weapons sent to Ukraine or burned up by the U.S. strike campaigns against Yemen’s Houthi group.
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). But I do think he sees tapping into Charlie Kirk’s right wing Christian youth base as being one of his main future voter cores if he plays it right.
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