In May 2025 it emerged that the Qatari royal family had offered President Trump its 13‑year‑old Boeing 747‑8, a $400 million “palace in the sky,” to use as a stopgap Air Force One. Trump immediately hailed it as a “free, very expensive airplane,” chiding Democrats on social media for refusing what he called a “transparent” gift. Officials note that the jet would need a far more thorough overhaul than a paint job. The White House has tapped defense contractor L3Harris to tear the plane “down to the studs” and rebuild it to meet presidential standards. That means installing hardened military avionics, secure encrypted networks, missile‑warning and counter‑measure systems, and heavy electromagnetic shielding, all technology that the two purpose‑built VC‑25B replacements will have as standard. These upgrades alone are expected to take years and run into “millions, if not billions,” taxpayer expense.
Aircraft experts warn that converting this luxury liner is like buying a new one. Former Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter says the work “would likely be on the order of a heavy maintenance cycle” for an existing VC‑25A, i.e. on the scale of tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. That tracks with past Air Force One overhauls, a 2011 deep‑maintenance contract for a VC‑25A ran about $134 million, and doesn’t even include the cost of rooting out any foreign‑built electronics. Hunter notes that vetting the jet for spyware or tracking chips could itself cost “tens of millions.” Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney, who helps oversee executive airlift, bluntly agrees: “You’d have to tear the plane down to the studs and rebuild it” a “massive undertaking, and an unfunded one at that.” In short, industry sources say the Qatar aircraft is not turnkey, but a budget‑busting project.
The two new Air Force One jets Boeing is building tell a similar story. In 2018, the Air Force awarded the pair a fixed‑price contract of $3.9 billion, a sum intended to cover their conversion into airborne command centers with all the bells and whistles. However, the program has been beset by delays and overruns; Boeing now admits it has lost over $2 billion on the deal. Current estimates put the total airframe cost at roughly $4.7 billion (excluding $250 million for a new hangar at Andrews). Official Pentagon figures from 2021 put each VC‑25B around $2.5 billion, with another $7.7 billion needed for operations and support over 30 years. Even at Trump’s vaunted bargain price, the Qatar plane may end up costing just as much as two ground‑up replacements, once refitted. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun himself has admitted the original contract was “priced too low.”
Aside from dollars, there are logistical hiccups. Engineers caution that pulling skilled technicians from Boeing’s Air Force One line to work on this interim project could slow the program overall. And there’s the timeline: the VC‑25Bs now aren’t expected in service before 2027, at best, so any interim solution would only bridge a few years' gap. Yet the cost per flight hour skyrockets if all the refitting is done and the plane only flies for a short while. As one former Air Force official quipped, the gift “could become a costly asset to own and operate,” mainly if Qatar’s reluctance stemmed from the jet’s maintenance bill.
Crucially, reports now make clear that this jet is earmarked not for permanent duty with the U.S. government, but ultimately for a Trump Presidential Library. According to multiple media accounts, once it serves as the President’s interim transport, the 747‑8 would be “donated to his presidential library” after Trump leaves office. In other words, U.S. taxpayers would underwrite a costly refit only to see the aircraft end up in a private museum of Trumpiana. Critics have panned the deal as a foreign‑funded gift to Trump’s legacy. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer denounced the Qatari jet as “so corrupt that even Putin would give a double take,” calling it “naked corruption” and a national security nightmare.
Former Trump ally Laura Loomer likewise warned that Americans “cannot accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits.” Even some congressional Republicans have expressed unease; as Fox News noted, GOP senators admit they’ve been “out of the loop” and say only that the proposal raises safety and legal questions. Legally, the plane exchange stumbles into severe restrictions. The Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause flatly bars any federal official from accepting “any present…from any…foreign State” without Congress’s consent. On top of that, the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act specifies that any foreign gift of more than token value is deemed accepted on behalf of the United States and “shall become the property of the United States.” In practice such gifts to a President are handed to the National Archives for official preservation, not kept in a personal collection. A literal $400 million gift from Qatar would thus require explicit congressional approval or else be absorbed into the federal inventory, meaning it could not legally be signed over to a private library. In early U.S. history, presidents struggled with similar dilemmas: George Washington once quietly kept diplomatic gifts without consent, whereas Andrew Jackson famously sought and obtained Congress’s sign‑off for a valuable royal present. Today, without that consent, the jet’s fate is murky at best and impermissible at worst.
For now, the proposal has become a political test. Trump insists the jet is a windfall for Americans. However, the reality is stark: a potential taxpayer burden of hundreds of millions in retrofit costs, billions in shadow expenses, and thorny legal hurdles, all yielding little new capability. Whether the plane ever flies a presidential mission or ends up parked in a museum, taxpayers are poised to foot nearly the entire bill.
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