The Defense Department has officially accepted a luxury jet from Qatar and has begun planning how to convert the plane into an Air Force One, despite bipartisan concern that accepting a foreign government’s plane is both dangerous and unethical.
“The Secretary of Defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations. The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the President of the United States,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Wednesday.
Last week, President Donald Trump confirmed plans to accept a $400 million jet from Qatar and use it as an interim Air Force One—calling it a “gift, free of charge” to the Defense Department and eventually to his presidential library. CNN reported Monday that the Trump administration first reached out to Qatar about the jet, contradicting Trump’s narrative that the Gulf nation offered it to him first.
News of the formal acceptance comes a day after Air Force officials said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had directed the service to draw up plans to modify the aircraft to meet security requirements.
“The Secretary of Defense has directed the Air Force to basically start planning to modify the aircraft,” newly appointed Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Tuesday during a Senate Armed Services committee hearing.
In a statement, an Air Force spokesperson said the service is preparing to award a contract for the modification but “details related to the contract are classified.”
But bipartisan concerns about the national security risks of accepting a jet from a foreign country have been mounting on Capitol Hill. And overhauling the jet wouldn’t come cheap: bringing the jet up to spec could cost over a billion dollars, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-IL., said during Tuesday’s hearing.
The Air Force will “look over all of those issues,” Meink told Duckworth, and the service is “postured” to make the necessary modifications, said Air Force Chief Gen. David Allvin.
How quickly the Air Force could make the modifications remains to be seen. Trump reportedly wants to use the plane by the end of the year, but former defense officials warn that necessary security improvements—like searching the jet for spy devices and adding secure communications, defensive capabilities, and other classified systems—would take much longer.
Accepting the plane might also violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause—a provision that prohibits gifts to federal officials from foreign nations—if the jet is ultimately transferred to a future presidential library, as Trump has said it would be, or for other personal use, Daniel Weiner, the director of the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program, told Axios.
Boeing is years behind building two new Air Force One jets, driving Trump to look for an interim solution. The VC-25B aircraft were originally scheduled to be delivered in 2024, but delays have pushed projections to 2028 or 2029. Boeing has said it can push up delivery to 2027 if some program requirements are relaxed.
On Monday night, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-SD, hinted that the Air Force is already devising plans to convert the Qatari jet, saying the service “actually does have a plan to be able to work through this.”
Rounds also said it might be possible to take some systems built for the Qatari jet and transfer them to the new VC-25Bs.
“I think there may very well be an argument made that as we transition from the old 747, which are still in service, to the new 747, there’s a number of items that have to be included in each of the 747s. If we can build some of that and then transition it out of one 747 and then into the new one, there may very well be some benefits to that while the old 747s are still flying,” Rounds said in an interview with CNN.
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