Elon Musk Criticizes F-35 Jet, Asks US To Replace With Drones

Billionaire Elon Musk, recently selected by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to help reduce Federal Government spending, criticized modern fighter jets on Monday, asserting that drones represent the future of air combat.

“Manned fighter jets are outdated in an era dominated by drones. They only put pilots’ lives at risk,” wrote Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, and X, in a post on his social media platform.

Musk specifically targeted the F-35 — an advanced fighter jet developed by U.S.-based Lockheed Martin and introduced in 2015 — with his remarks.

“Despite this, some people are still investing in outdated technology like the F-35,” he stated, sharing a video of hundreds of drones flying in synchronized formation in the sky.

The F-35, the world’s most advanced fighter, is stealth-capable and can also be used to gather intelligence.

Germany, Poland, Finland, and Romania have all recently signed deals for the aircraft.

Its development, however, has suffered from issues, notably in the design of its computer programs, and its very high operating costs are regularly criticized by its detractors.

“The F-35 design was broken at the requirements level because it was required to be too many things to too many people,” said Musk on Monday, calling it “an expensive (and) complex jack of all trades, master of none.”

For Mauro Gilli, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, “What makes the F-35… expensive is the software and the electronics, not the pilot per se.”

This is significant “because a reusable drone would need to get all that flashy electronics of an F-35,” he said on X.

He also pointed out that the existence of the F-35 had forced US rivals to develop their own aircraft and advanced radar to match it.

“By simply existing, the F-35 and the B-1 force Russia and China into strategic choices, they would not have to make otherwise (i.e. budget allocations),” Gilli said, referring to B-1 heavy bomber aircraft.

“Even if Musk were right (and he is not), deleting the programs would relax these constraints on them.”