• Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg says Elon Musk is helping speed up the arrival of the Next Air Force One.
• The planemaker has lost more than $2 billion producing the long-delayed presidential aircraft.
• President Donald Trump "wants the airplane sooner," Ortberg told CNBC.

Elon Musk is helping Boeing speed up production of the Next Air Force One, the planemaker's CEO told CNBC.

Also known as the VC-25B, costs and delays have snowballed since Boeing was tapped in 2015 to build a new presidential aircraft.

It was initially set to be delivered in 2024, but the timeframe has been pushed back to at least 2027. Boeing has reported losses of more than $2 billion on the program.

"The president wants the airplane sooner, and so we're working with Elon and the team to figure what can we do to pull up the schedule of that aircraft," Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told CNBC.

He added that discussions had been constructive and praised the Department of Government Efficiency.

"They sincerely are looking at things in the contract or in the process that are slowing us down that are not providing value," Ortberg said.

"We're engaging with the DOGE team to see if we can't find that right mix of requirements that need to come out and get out of our way so we can be more efficient and deliver a better product," he added.

During President Donald Trump's first term, he renegotiated the terms — threatening to cancel the program if it exceeded $4 billion.

To cut costs, Boeing agreed in 2018 to use two jets originally destined for a Russian airline that went bankrupt.

In 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that production problems included one Boeing employee not being properly credentialed to oversee the work and another failing a routine drug test.

Mini bottles of tequila were also found on board one of the future presidential jets, the Journal reported.

What will the Next Air Force One look like?

At his inaugural ball earlier this month, Trump signaled his appetite for the new presidential jet by cutting a cake adorned with the VC-25B.

Notably, the model had a red, white, and blue design — unlike the light blue used for every presidential jet since the Kennedy era.

In 2019, Trump showed ABC a similar plane design. "I'm doing that for other presidents, not for me," he added.

However, this color scheme was found to cause further delays. The Air Force said a thermal study found that the dark blue would necessitate additional tests because of added heat in some environments.

So in 2023, then-President Joe Biden chose a light-blue livery, in line with the current and previous Air Force Ones — but it seems like Trump would prefer his original design.

• Elon Musk had some criticism for former Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun on Christmas Day.
• "Boeing is on a much better track with the new CEO," Musk wrote on X.
• Musk said Calhoun, an accounting graduate, "had no idea how airplanes or rockets worked."

Boeing is "on a much better track" after changing CEOs, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday.

Musk was talking about America's shortage of engineering talent on X when he was asked about the embattled aerospace manufacturer.

"That said, talking in terms of specific companies, Boeing is on a much better track with the new CEO. The prior guy had no idea how airplanes or rockets worked. Just zero," Musk wrote in his post.

Boeing was previously led by Dave Calhoun, who served as the company's CEO from January 2020 to July 2024.

The Virginia Tech accounting graduate was succeeded by former Rockwell Collins CEO Kelly Ortberg in August. Ortberg holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Iowa.

When Boeing announced Calhoun's resignation in March, Calhoun said the decision was 100% his own.

"I've entered my fifth year. At the end of this year, I'll be close to 68 years old," Calhoun said in an interview with CNBC.

This isn't the first time Musk has criticized Calhoun's academic background. Back in June, Musk said that Boeing had lost touch with its engineering roots.

"The CEO of an aircraft company should know how to design aircraft, not spreadsheets," Musk wrote in an X post on June 25.

Representatives for Calhoun and Ortberg at Boeing did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment. Musk also did not respond to a request for comment.

Calhoun's departure came amid a deepening quality-control crisis at Boeing.

The aerospace company faced intense scrutiny in January after a door plug flew off a Boeing 737 Max 9 during an Alaskan Airlines flight from Oregon to California.

The incident resulted in a series of investigations from the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Justice, and the National Transportation Safety Board.

According to a Senate subcommittee report on Boeing's safety and quality practices that was published in June, several whistleblowers came forward to express concerns about how Boeing handles faulty plane parts.

Calhoun's predecessor, Dennis Muilenburg, was fired after two crashes involving a different Max variant, the Max 8, killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019.

Calhoun publicly apologized to the families of the crash victims during a Senate hearing in June, but defended Boeing's safety record when he was grilled by lawmakers.

"You're proud of the safety record?" Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri asked Calhoun.

"I am proud of every action we've taken," Calhoun said.

In October, Ortberg shared his four-part turnaround plan for Boeing in a memo to employees.

Ortberg's plan called for a fundamental change in the company's culture, a stabilization of its business, an improvement in execution discipline, and the building of a new future for the planemaker.

"We need to be on the factory floors, in the back shops and in our engineering labs. We need to know what's going on, not only with our products, but with our people," Ortberg wrote.

"And most importantly, we need to prevent the festering of issues and work better together to identify, fix, and understand root cause," he added.

Boeing reported a net loss of $6.1 billion in the third quarter of 2024 in the same month. The company recorded a loss of more than $1.4 billion in the previous quarter.

Boeing's shares are down by over 31% this year.

"It will take time to return Boeing to its former legacy, but with the right focus and culture, we can be an iconic company and aerospace leader once again," Ortberg said in his October memo.

• Boeing's CEO Kelly Ortberg has a message for his staff: Stop fighting and get to work.
• Ortberg urged employees to "focus on the task at hand" instead of squabbling.
• The CEO also spoke with President-elect Donald Trump about the impact of his potential tariffs.

Boeing's CEO Kelly Ortberg has a stern warning for his staff — stop squabbling and get to work.

The Wall Street Journal obtained and verified a recording of Ortberg's remarks at Boeing's hourlong town hall meeting on Wednesday.

"We spend more time arguing amongst ourselves than thinking about how we're going to beat Airbus," he said at the all-hands meeting, The WSJ reported.

"Everybody is tired of the drumbeat of what's wrong with Boeing. I'm tired of it and I haven't been here that long," Ortberg added.

During the meeting, Ortberg also told staff not to "sit at the water cooler and bitch about people," per The WSJ's transcription of the recording.

"Let's focus on the task at hand," Ortberg said.

Representatives for Boeing did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular office hours.

Ortberg, who took over as chief of the beleaguered planemaker in August, has had to deal with many problems in his first months at the company, including a massive seven-week worker strike and multibillion-dollar losses.

The WSJ also reported that Ortberg has spoken with President-elect Donald Trump about the impact of potential tariffs on Boeing.

Trump has proposed broad tariffs on imports, including 60% tariffs on goods from China.

Ortberg told staff that a potential trade war with China might impact the company's plane exports to Chinese airlines.

Boeing has seen its stock price fall about 40% since the start of the year.

The all-hands meeting also came amid a raft of layoffs being rolled out at Boeing.

In October, Boeing said it would cut 10% of its 170,000-strong global workforce. The reduction plan will include 2,199 employees in Washington and another 50 in Oregon, according to the company's filings.

As part of the cuts, Boeing is laying off more than 400 workers who are part of its professional aerospace labor union. The Seattle Times reported on Friday that 438 members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) received pink slips.

In a note to employees on October 11, Ortberg said Boeing was in a "difficult position" and that "restoring our company requires tough decisions."

But there are some bright spots: the company has resumed production of its 737 Max airplanes, and secured its first order since the strike. Aviation company Avia Solutions Group announced on November 12 that it had placed an order for 80 Boeing 737 Max planes.

In the company's third-quarterly statement on October 23, Ortberg vowed to make the company "iconic" again.

"It will take time to return Boeing to its former legacy, but with the right focus and culture, we can be an iconic company and aerospace leader once again," he said.

Representatives for Trump did not respond to BI's request for comment.