Elon Musk declares manned fighter jets like F-35 ‘obsolete’, calls for shift to drones in modern warfare

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has called the United States' airforce's F-35 fighter jets "broken at the requirement levels" and "obsolete in the age of drones".

In multiple posts on his social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), Musk opined that manner fighter jets are on their way out and drones are the way of the future in warfare.

‘Will Just Get Pilots Killed…’

In the post criticising the F-35 jets on November 25, Musk also dismissed the aircraft as a “jack of all trades, master of none”.

“The F-35 design was broken at the requirements level, because it was required to be too many things to too many people. This made it an expensive & complex jack of all trades, master of none. Success was never in the set of possible outcomes,” (sic) he wrote.

He added, “And manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones anyway. Will just get pilots killed.” (sic)

About The F-35

According to the AFP, the F-35 is a next-generation fighter jet from US defence manufacturing company Lockheed Martin. Entered into service in 2015, it is the world's most advanced fighter, is stealth capable and can also be used to gather intelligence, it said.

Germany, Poland, Finland and Romania have all recently signed deals for the aircraft. But development has been impacted by programming issues and high cost, the report added.

In a separate post on X, Musk a posted a video of hundreds of drones hovering in formation in the sky, and captioned it as: "Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35" (sic)

Researcher Says ‘Musk Not Right’

Mauro Gilli, Senior Researcher in Military Technology and International Security at the Center for Security Studies of ETH-Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich), in a post thread of X, criticised Musk's opinion.

“So many wrong takes here. To start, what makes the F-35 or the B-21 expensive is the software and the electronics, not the pilot per se ... which is important because a reusable drone would need to get all that flashy electronics of an F-35, which is expensive,” he wrote.

Gilli added that aircraft are also “reusable” and, unlike drones, capable of operating in contested airspaces (with stealth technology). He also pointed out that "rival" countries like China and Russia are trying to replicate the address the threat of US stealth aircraft.

“By simply existing, the F-35 and the B-1 force Russia and China into strategic choices they would not have to make otherwise (i.e. budget allocations),” Gilli said, referring to B-1 heavy bomber aircraft. “Even if Musk were right (and he is not), deleting the programs would relax these constraints on them,” he felt.

(With inputs from AFP)