Key Points: Recent rumors claimed President-elect Donald Trump planned to cancel the “$1 trillion” F-35 with Lockheed Martin, allegedly citing China’s fighter jet advancements and the inefficiencies of manned aircraft.
-However, this story originated from an Indian news outlet and spread via social media. It appears to be misinformation.
-Lockheed Martin has labeled the claims as false, and the U.S. military remains committed to the F-35 program, though procurement numbers have been adjusted due to technical issues.
-While tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has criticized the F-35 in favor of drones, China’s continued development of manned fighters undermines the notion that drones alone are the future of air combat.
No, Donald Trump Didn’t Cancel the F-35 Contract Despite Rumors
News circulated on Wednesday that claimed President-elect Donald Trump was canceling the “$1 trillion” contract with aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.
The Indian-based “Times Now News” first reported, “Pesident-elect Donald Trump reportedly told Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet that he plans to cancel the $1 trillion F-35 contract because ‘China is winning the fighter race’ while the company ‘sends executives to DEI camps’. This comes days after Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) launched an attack against Pentagon’s modern fighter jets, saying that drones were the future of air combat.”
It is unclear where the news site received its information, but what looks like misinformation soon spread on social media, with supporters of Elon Musk praising the decision.
“President Trump told the CEO of Lockheed Martin he will be CANCELLING the $1 TRILLION F-35 contract when he takes office, per NYP,” wrote online commentator Nick Sortor in a post on X. “GOOD! The amount of crashes, delays, and cost overruns is off the charts. This is one of the most wasteful projects in U.S. military history. Invest in unmanned aircraft instead!”
Sortor had essentially championed the comments by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who bought the former Twitter in November 2022 for $44 billion. It was last month that Musk suggested the F-35 should be grounded in favor of drones.
A U.S. Air Force F-35 Lightning II aircraft assigned to the 34th Fighter Squadron receives fuel from a KC-10 Extender aircraft over Poland, February 24, 2022. U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Joseph Barron/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
“The F-35 design was broken at the requirements level because it was required to be too many things to too many people,” Musk wrote on X. “This made it an expensive and complex jack of all trades, master of none. Success was never in the set of possible outcomes. And manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones anyway. Will just get pilots killed.”
Lockheed Martin has responded to the claims and stated, “This is false reporting and fake news.”
An Element of Truth
What could make this reporting a bit more believable is that the number of F-35s the U.S. military will receive has been scaled back.
As previously reported, the fiscal year 2025 (FY25) National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has reduced the U.S. military’s F-35 Lightning II orders from 68 to 58, citing unresolved issues with the TR-3 software/hardware upgrade.
However, the United States military has remained committed to the F-35 and the fifth-generation stealth fighter is slated to remain in service until at least the 2070s. The aircraft has been adopted by 19 allied and partner nations and is on track to be the most widely used aircraft in the NATO alliance.
China Isn’t Relying on Drones
One point that some users on social media were also quick to highlight is that while Musk praised a Chinese drone demonstration when he posted, “Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35,” Beijing went to great lengths to show off its fifth-generation fighters at last month’s China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition.
US F-35C. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin.
The People’s Liberation Army Air Force presented a flight demonstration of its Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon and carrier-capable Shenyang J-35 – and even teased the latter aircraft on social media.
Perhaps Musk didn’t get the memo that Beijing has its own “idiots” who are building manned fighters. Moreover, China has gone to great lengths to “acquire” the technology behind the F-35 and the F-22 Raptor, using hackers to steal data about both aircraft.
The real idiots might be those who believe that drones can replace manned fighters anytime soon.
Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu is a Senior Editor focusing on defense issues for 19FortyFive. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,500 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on X: @PeterSuciu – and on Bluesky: @petersuciu.bsky.social.
