Trump slams cost of the F-35 fighter plane

President-elect Donald Trump criticized the F-35 fighter jet early Monday, saying the “program and cost is out of control.”

Trump said that when he takes office he will work to control costs of military contracts.

{mosads}“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,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Trump’s tweet comes after he attended the annual Army-Navy football game, where four F-35s conducted a flyover before the game. 

A CNN report over the summer noted that the F-35 program’s cost has risen to $400 billion to produce 2,457 planes — nearly twice the estimated cost.

More than 1,000 planes were to have been delivered by 2016, but only 179 had been sent as of April this year.

Lockheed Martin shares drop sharply after Trump tweets about “out of control” F-35 program costs. https://t.co/DlQWTKRBwH pic.twitter.com/8TYnVaXpQa

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) December 12, 2016

Lockheed Martin builds the F-35. CNBC reported several minutes after Trump’s tweet that shares of its stock were dropping ahead of the opening of U.S. markets.

This is the second time in two weeks that Trump has hit a military contractor.

Trump last week slammed Boeing for the cost of its new Air Force One, causing Boeing’s stocks to take a similar drop.

“Cancel order!” he had tweeted. 

The cost and time overruns in delivering the F-35 has made it a target of critics in Congress, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.).

McCain called a $6.1 billion deal reached between the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin last month “the height of acquisition malpractice.”

“Unfortunately, it is too often seen as business as usual. That is why the acquisition reforms in last year’s and this year’s National Defense Authorization Act are so critical. We cannot change course soon enough,” he said. 

Kristina Wong contributed to this report.