Here’s A Stunning List Of Delays And Waste By Defense Contractors Who Are Meeting With Hegseth Friday

War Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to address a number of top defense companies on Friday to outline a potential overhaul to the procurement process amid persistent delays and waste in contract deliveries.

The meeting is intended to outline a sweeping set of acquisition reforms to top-level executives at America’s top industry titans, such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies, among many others. The industry titans have long suffered from delays to delivering on contracts to the Pentagon, often to the tune of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

“The core principle of this transformation is simple: place accountable decision makers as close as possible to program execution, eliminate non value added layers of bureaucracy, and prioritize flexible trades and timely delivery at the speed of relevance,” Hegseth said in a memo announcing the meeting.

One flagship example remains Lockheed Martin’s contract for the F-35 multi-role fighter, which is over budget by $165 billion and a decade late on deliveries. The Air Force also slashed its order for the fighter jets from 48 units to only 24 units in their procurement request for fiscal year 2026.

Boeing’s KC-46 Pegasus aerial-refueling tanker was also delayed over eight years to the tune of billions of dollars of overrun cost. Additionally, the company’s drone refueling craft, the MQ-25 Stingray, was