Trump's recent Air Force Boeing contract figures found baseless, Airbus to build new planes?

There are now a slew of brand new reports which have claimed that Trump's recent rant regarding the Unites States' Air Force One program, with a contract with Boeing, may be inaccurate. President-elect Trump just recently proclaimed that he will be cancelling the order the country has placed with Boeing seeing as that the cost for the new planes may be more than $4 billion. However, several reports have claimed that there is no such evidence that can corroborate the figure that Trump had mentioned.

Trump's tweet seemingly implies that one brand new Air Force One airplane was ordered, but there are actually two planes being requisitioned in the contract with Boeing. The multinational aeronautics manufacturer had won the contract with the United States back in January this year, beating its only bid rival, Airbus. If Trump does decide to cancel the order, there may be some controversy if he opts to have the French build the brand new Air Force One airplanes.

As for the contract itself the total amount of money that has been released so far has been just over $150 million. The budget for the program reportedly is only about $800 million for each plane with a total of $1.6 billion through 2019. So far, Boeing has received an initial contract of $25.8 million for preliminary research into increasing their product's safety and cost reduction. It then received $127.3 million back in July to reduce delay risks and cost overruns before it commits to full-scale development and procurement of materials and parts.

Several reports have claimed that there is no basis or credible source to back up Trump's $4 billion cost claims. It is possible that Trump could have some information that is not readily available to news sources. However, there is a very slim chance that the cost overrun could go as high as he claims given that the product's deliver date is on 2024.