Musk: Only “idiots” still build manned combat aircraft

The high-tech billionaire appointed as an advisor to US President-elect Donald Trump Elon Musk holds it Construction of modern fighter aircraft for pointless. “Manned combat aircraft are already superfluous in the age of drones. This only kills pilots,” wrote the boss of the space company SpaceX on X on Monday.

Particularly Musk criticized the F-35 fighter jet, which is manufactured by the US defense company Lockheed Martin and was put into service in 2015.

“Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35,” he wrote alongside a video on his online service that shows hundreds of drones in formation in the sky. The F-35 is the most modern fighter aircraft in the world; the jet can be used as a stealth bomber and also for reconnaissance. Germany, Poland, Finland and Romania have recently signed contracts to purchase this aircraft.

There were problems during the development of the jet, particularly with the computer programs – and the very high operating costs of the F-35 are regularly criticized. Musk called the machine “an expensive (and) complex jack-of-all-trades that can’t do anything.”

Expert disagrees

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

This is significant “because a reusable drone would have to have all the complex electronics of an F-35,” he wrote on X.

Gilli also noted that the existence of the F-35 fighter jets and the B-1, a long-range strategic bomber, led to states rivaling the United States developing their own aircraft and an advanced radar system to take them on .

“By their very existence, the F-35 and B-1 force Russia and China to make strategic decisions they would not otherwise have to make,” Gilli wrote.