President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth listens as an image of an F-47 fighter jet is displayed during an event in Washington on March 21, 2025. (Pool photo via AP)
Boeing will build the next generation U.S. fighter jet, President Donald Trump announced Friday from the Oval Office.
The aerospace giant was awarded an estimated $20 billion initial contract to build the Pentagon’s 6th Generation fighter jet, a replacement for the short-lived F-22 Raptor stealth fighter program, which was built by Boeing competitor Lockheed Martin. Boeing beat out Lockheed as the two finalists in the program that could grow to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars, officials have said.
Trump announced the new aircraft will be called the F-47. The aircraft has been in development since 2018 under the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance program. The manned jet is expected to feature advanced stealth and artificial intelligence capabilities and work together with paired drones capable of penetrating air defense systems undetected.
“We’re confident that it massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation,” Trump said Friday. “America’s enemies will never see it coming. Hopefully we won’t have to use it for that purpose, but you have to have it. And if it ever happens, they won’t know what the hell hit them.”
Trump said prototypes of the future aircraft having been secretly flying in recent years. The United States hopes the F-47 will be the first 6th generation fighter aircraft to enter military fleets, as China has reportedly also been flying protype versions of its next generation stealth fighters.
Shown is a graphical artist rendering of the Next Generation Air Dominance platform. The rendering highlights the Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter, the F-47. (U.S. Air Force)
The contract marks a huge win for Boeing, which has been plagued in recent years by safety issues with their aircraft, quality control problems and production delays, including in the company’s new Air Force One program and its KC-46 Air Force tankers.
It also marks a boost to the Next Generation Air Dominance program, after it was briefly halted last year under former President Joe Biden’s administration over concerns about cost and necessity. Reviews of the program showed it was necessary to continue given advancements in Chinese air defenses, Air Force officials have said in recent months.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the F-47 would prove a dramatic step over the fifth generation F-22 and F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters now highlighting the Pentagon’s fighter jet inventory. The Lockheed-built F-35 remains the most combat capable fighter jet in the world, but it is the most expensive weapons system in history, costing the Pentagon more than $1 trillion for about 700 aircraft. Defense officials plan to purchase hundreds more and fly the plane into the 2080s, according to the Defense Department.
“Now we have the F-47, which sends a very direct, clear message to our allies that we’re not going anywhere and to our enemies that will be able to project power around the globe unimpeded for generations to come,” Hegseth said Friday alongside Trump.
Air Force Gen. David Allvin, the service’s chief of staff, said Friday that the new aircraft will be “the crown jewel” in the service’s inventory. He said the aircraft would be built to adapt quickly to advancing technology, including increases in enemy capabilities. But its design as a sort-of-mothership capable of controlling semiautonomous wingmen drones might mark its greatest advantage over existing aircraft.
“We believe that this provides more lethality, it provides more capability, more modernized capability,” Allvin said from the Oval Office. “… This is allowing us to look into the future and unlock the magic that is human-machine teaming. And as we do that, we’re going to write the next generation of modern aerial warfare with this. This enables us to do it.”
Trump and the other officials declined to say precisely how much the F-47 program was expected to cost American taxpayers or when the first F-47s might arrive to the fleet. The Navy is expected to award a separate contract for a Next Generation Air Dominance program fighter jet later, Pentagon officials said.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the announcement amounted to a “great day for American airpower.”
“I am delighted that President Trump has made the decision to move forward on NGAD/F-47, and I congratulate the Boeing Company,” he said in a statement. “The NGAD/F-47 is a vital platform that would allow the United States to rule the skies for years to come.”
Eric Fanning, the president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association and a former Army secretary, said in a statement that he was pleased to see the Next Generation Air Dominance Program proceeding.
“Continued investment in this program protects America’s strategic superiority in the skies, bolsters businesses of all sizes that make up the supply chain, and provides our armed forces with effective, lethal capabilities to deter and defeat emerging threats anywhere in the world,” he said.
