Billionaire Elon Musk is now lending a hand to Boeing, assisting the company with developing the long-delayed 747-8-based VC-25B Air Force One replacement that president Donald Trump badly desires.
“Elon Musk is actually helping us a lot, in working through the requirements on the VC-25, to try to help us get… non-value-added constraints out of the way, so that we can move faster and get those airplanes delivered,” Boeing chief executive Kelly Ortberg said on 20 February.
Musk, as head of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been scouring US government agencies and programmes in search of alleged inefficiencies and wasteful spending.
Ortberg’s comments came one day after president Trump reportedly warned he is considering ordering an “alternative” aircraft due to Boeing’s delays.
“I’m not happy with Boeing,” Trump said on 19 February while aboard one of the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) two VC-25As, which are designated Air Force One while the president is aboard, according to reports. “We’re looking at alternatives because it’s taking Boeing too long.”
One day prior, Reuters reported that a Trump administration official said Boeing’s development of the VC-25B – intended to replace the VC-25A – may be further delayed, until 2029.
“The president’s clearly not happy with delivery timing,” Ortberg said on 20 February during an investor conference hosted by Barclays.
The CEO is “embracing” Musk’s assistance and calls Musk a “pretty brilliant guy”.
“He’s able to pretty quickly ascertain the difference between technical requirements and the things that we can move out of the way,” Ortberg says.
Boeing declines to comment.
The company in 2018 won a $3.9 billion contract to develop two VC-25Bs, at the time aiming for them to enter service in 2024. That timeline then slipped to 2026 amid supply chain and labour troubles. Last year, the USAF said the first VC-25B flight would not even occur until March 2026, 16 months later than expected.
Modifying the 747-8s for presidential use has proved an incredibly complex and expensive task. Boeing has taken hundreds of millions of dollars in charges against the loss-making programme.
