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By Ewan Palmer
News Reporter
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To prepare for potential major cuts by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Pentagon is reportedly compiling lists of weapons and military programs it has long sought to cancel as cost-cutting measures.
This includes the Army eliminating drones and vehicles that have been produced in surplus, and the Navy cutting frigates and littoral combat ships, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. DOGE members were expected at the Defense Department as soon as Friday.
Why It Matters
Musk has taken steps to dismantle government agencies and departments under his cost-cutting and government waste removal mandate. He and President Donald Trump appear to be targeting military spending for a drastic restructuring, which would likely have significant implications for U.S. national defense.
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What to Know
In a recent Fox News interview with Bret Baier, Trump said he intends to "check the military," adding they could find "hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud and abuse."
Pentagon officials hope DOGE's cost-cutting efforts will allow them to reduce spending on weapons that lawmakers previously blocked due to local political and economic interests, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In response to the report, a Department of Defense spokesperson told Newsweek: "We have nothing to provide."
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have opposed reducing spending on weapons, ships and vehicles, arguing that defense contracts are a critical source of jobs for their districts.
Musk, who has said it would be possible to cut "at least $2 trillion" from government spending by eradicating "waste," may also consider removing the F-35 stealth fighter jets from operation. He has repeatedly criticized the aircraft on social media, calling them "obsolete" and too expensive.
In a November 2024 post on X, formerly Twitter, Musk said "idiots" are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35s when they can be replaced with unmanned drones.
In December 2024, Paul Livingston, chief executive of Lockheed Martin's U.K. division told British newspaper The Telegraph that Musk was "wrong" about the jet's capabilities. He argued that the F-35 remains "beyond anything else out there."
That same month, Lockheed Martin secured a nearly $12 billion contract to produce 145 additional F-35 fighter jets for the U.S. military and its international allies.
On Tuesday, Fox News listed several examples of Pentagon overspending, which the news outlet suggested DOGE could target to help reduce its $850 billion annual budget.
The report said the Pentagon could cut spending by eliminating outsourcing for services that could be performed in-house.
Julia Gledhill, a researcher at the Stimson Center's National Security Reform program said a "major drive" of the Pentagon is paying for service contracting "simple things" like IT support, which the government could provide itself.
On Wednesday, Trump suggested the Pentagon could save billions if the United States, Russia, and China agree to a major denuclearization program.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said he intended to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin about reducing their nuclear stockpiles.
Trump said there was "no reason" for the U.S. to be spending "almost a trillion dollars" on the military.
What People Are Saying
Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told The Wall Street Journal: "The [Pentagon] wants to inoculate itself. The services see this as an opportunity to eliminate things they couldn't before due to political opposition. The new administration is willing to make cuts that will upset constituencies. A lot of companies have built their business around government funding, and the administration is not worried about the reaction it will get from the Hill."
Julia Gledhill, a researcher at the Stimson Center's National Security Reform program, told Fox News: "A major driver of Pentagon waste is actually service contracting for what are really core government functions and administrative capacities, like IT support. It might run contrary to their larger project to cut the civilian workforce, but there are many ways to cut Pentagon waste by building up government capacity rather than outsourcing at a high cost."
Elon Musk, in a November 2024 post on X, wrote: "The F-35 design was broken at the requirements level because it was expected to be too many things to too many people. 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. They will just get pilots killed."
President Donald Trump, speaking on Wednesday, said: "There's no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear weapons. We already have so many, you could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are, building new nuclear weapons. And they're building new nuclear weapons. And China's trying to catch up."
What Happens Next
It is unclear what sort of cuts Musk's DOGE team will try and implement at the Pentagon, or if any weapons programs will be scrapped.
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