President-elect Donald Trump is targeting another military contractor he says is allowing the cost of the F-35 program to balloon out of control.
“The F-35 program and cost is out of control,” Trump wrote on Twitter about the program, run by Lockheed Martin. It has an estimated cost of $1.45 trillion over the next 50 years. In 2009, the cost was estimated at $900 million.
Trump signals that he would make saving money on military projects a priority as president.
“Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th,” he wrote.
Trump also mentioned the F-35 program during an interview on Fox News Sunday, pointing out that government officials who made the deals with contractors, usually ended up working for them.
“The people that are making these deals for the government, they should never be allowed to go to work for these companies,” he said. “You know, they make a deal like that and two or three years later, you see them working for these companies that made the deal.”
UPDATE:
Shares of Lockheed Martin Corp. dropped as much 3.4 percent after Trump’s tweet, according to Bloomberg News.
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