Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump tweeted on Monday that the cost of F-35 fighter plane is too high, saying the “program and cost is out of control”.
“The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th,” Xinhua news agency quoted Trump as saying in a tweet.
Lockheed Martin builds the F-35. It is the second time within two weeks that the President-elect has slammed a military contractor.
“Cancel order!” he tweeted last week, slamming Boeing for the cost of its new Air Force One, asserting it is “too expensive”.
Market value of Lockheed Martin dropped $4 billion after Trump’s tweet in early trading on Monday, a similar occurrence where stocks in Boeing dropped last week.
F-35’s cost has risen to $400 billion to produce 2,457 planes — nearly twice the estimated cost, according to a CNN report issued earlier this year.
More than 1,000 planes were to have been delivered by 2016, but only 179 had been sent as of April this year.
IANS