President Trump Has a Rare Chance to Cut the $1 Trillion Defense Budget: Which Stocks Are Most at Risk?
Creative destruction comes to the U.S. Pentagon.
Elon Musk has been set loose in the Pentagon, wielding an axe and slashing spending. Last week, as you may have heard, President Trump expressed a desire to "cut our military budget in half," utilizing Musk and his merry band of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) price cutters to get the job done. And one week later, details of how the cuts might happen, itemized by year, are starting to emerge.
On Wednesday, newly installed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly told the Pentagon it needs to find $50 billion worth of programs to cut next year. But the cuts won't end there. As CBS reports, the Trump administration intends to keep cutting defense spending at an average rate of 8% per year, over the next five years.
Working off the fiscal 2025 defense budget of $895 billion (or as the President puts it, "almost $1 trillion"), that would reduce the Pentagon's budget to $590 billion by 2030, a total reduction of 34%. It's not exactly 50%.
