Trump Meets Boeing and Lockheed Executives After Assailing Them on Jet Costs

After attacking Boeing and Lockheed Martin on Twitter over the costs of military contracts, President-elect Donald J. Trump met Wednesday with the chief executives of the two aerospace companies, saying his goal was to try to “bring costs down.”

Mr. Trump said he was mainly concerned about Lockheed Martin’s new F-35 fighter jet, which, at $400 billion for 2,400 jets, “is very, very expensive.” Asked if he had won any concessions in the meeting, he said, “We’re just beginning, it’s a dance.”

“We’re going to get the costs down,” he added, “and we’re going to get it done beautifully.”

Mr. Trump said he also was “looking to cut a tremendous amount of money” from a Boeing program to build new Air Force One planes that provide mobile command centers for the president.

Boeing has received only a $170 million contract to study initial concepts. But Mr. Trump asserted in a Twitter post on Dec. 6 that the estimated costs were “out of control, more than $4 billion,” adding, “Cancel order!”

Mr. Trump met first on Wednesday with Dennis A. Muilenburg, Boeing’s chief executive, followed by Lockheed’s chief executive, Marillyn A. Hewson, and Pentagon officials with models of the F-35 jets. The meetings took place at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.

Mr. Muilenburg told reporters after the meeting that he had given Mr. Trump “my personal commitment” that Boeing would build new Air Force One planes for less than the $4 billion estimate that Mr. Trump had cited.

“It was a terrific conversation,” Mr. Muilenburg said.

Ms. Hewson released a statement saying that she and Mr. Trump had had “a productive meeting” and that she had briefed him on the company’s progress in lowering the fighter jets’ cost.

Cost increases have bedeviled both the Bush and Obama administrations since the F-35 program began in 2001. It was conceived as an affordable way to build three versions of a strike fighter, one each for the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines. But it proved more complicated to tailor each variant for its service, and costs ballooned.

Lockheed has built 200 of the jets so far, and Pentagon officials contend that the program has stabilized since it was restructured in 2011. But if Mr. Trump insists on cuts, military analysts said, the Pentagon could end up building far fewer jets than planned.

Military analysts have said that the bulk of the cost of building new Air Force One jets would come from developing complex communications and protective systems, including antimissile defenses and shielding to protect against the electromagnetic effects of a nuclear blast.

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