President Donald Trump known as out Raytheon by title as he continues to hunt to make an instance out of the nation’s largest defense contractors.
“I’ve been knowledgeable by the Division of Struggle that Protection Contractor, Raytheon, has been the least attentive to the wants of the Division of Struggle, the slowest in rising their quantity, and probably the most aggressive spending on their Shareholders quite than the wants and calls for of the US Navy,” Trump wrote in a Reality Social publish revealed on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for RTX Company, previously referred to as Raytheon till it rebranded in 2023 following a merger with United Applied sciences Company, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Enterprise Insider.
Earlier within the day, Trump fired a broadside on the complete protection trade, posting on Reality Social that he would “not allow” additional inventory buybacks or dividends to be issued to shareholders. Trump additionally stated that till protection corporations construct “NEW and MODERN Manufacturing Crops” their executives’ pay needs to be capped at $5 million.
It is unclear why Trump singled out Raytheon particularly. The corporate has a historical past of returning capital to shareholders. Raytheon introduced a $10 billion buyback plan in 2023 and says it has paid a dividend yearly since 1936.
Final 12 months, the corporate paid out a dividend in March. It is unclear if Trump’s assertion will have an effect on these plans and even the extent to which a president might prohibit a publicly traded firm from fulfilling its beforehand declared monetary obligations.
Trump has incessantly used the presidential bully pulpit to criticize companies and their CEOs. In August 2025, Trump known as for Intel to fireside its CEO Lip-Bu Tan, solely to later change his stance after the US authorities acquired a roughly 10% stake within the chipmaker.
It’s much less widespread for Trump to straight threaten an organization’s authorities contracts, though he has executed in order properly.
In July 2025, Trump threatened to chop off Elon Musk’s corporations from authorities contracts throughout a heated back-and-forth with the world’s richest individual. Since then, Trump has reconciled with the billionaire.
