CNBC's Morgan Brennan joins 'Halftime Report' to sit down with Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey. They discuss the ramp-up in missile production at Lockheed Martin and what it means for the broader market.
What James Taiclet said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet said defense demand is permanent, not fleeting, and that the company is tripling or quadrupling production of defensive and strike missiles. He cited a plan to raise Patriot missile output from 600 to over 2,000 per year, enabled by automation, robotics, and partnerships with Hadrian and General Motors. Taiclet noted Lockheed will add 6,000 workers and is working with financial firms to help 20 key suppliers per munition secure third-party financing. He argued the Pentagon must shift to commercial-style contracts to solve a 'master engineering equation' of rising threats, faster technology, and limited budgets, which could lead to margin expansion. He pushed back on investor concerns about lower defense stocks, emphasizing long-term agreements will build backlog.
Key takeaways
Defense demand is permanent, not fleeting, and Lockheed is tripling or quadrupling missile production rates.
Patriot missile output will rise from 600 to over 2,000 per year over a reasonable time.
Lockheed will add 6,000 workers to support missile production expansion.
Lockheed is partnering with Hadrian and General Motors to bring robotics and manufacturing expertise.
Long-term agreements with the Pentagon could enable margin expansion for Lockheed.
Hi, Frank. That's right. I am here in Texas. I'm joined by the CEO and Chairman of Lockheed Martin, Jim Taiclet, and the Honorable Michael Duffy, the Undersecretary of Acquisition and Sustainment for the Department of Defense. It's great to be with both of you here today. I think just to start, Jim, the moment that we're in, when we are so focused as a country on missiles and munitions, what you're doing here and how it speaks to growing manufacturing footprint, a different manufacturing footprint across the country right now.
So, Morgan, we are bringing the best of American industry into this site and many others. And just today, Secretary and I saw Hadrian's new production cell using their automated machines that they build in the United States, design and build in the United States. So robotics are everywhere. Hadrian's our latest partner in bringing robotics to our production system. And on the other end of the spectrum, you have one of the most storied and largest industrial companies in the world, and that's General Motors. So the GM leadership team from their defense business is here and working with us already to bring their manufacturing expertise, their supply chain skills to this mission. Because what I like to say to my team here and every other place I go is that we may be in the aerospace and defense industry, but we're in the business of deterrence to armed conflict. And so we should go out to every sector of the economy, the tech sector, the telecom sector, manufacturing, robotics, AI, and bring all that best technology, all that best capacity and capability to this mission that Secretary Duffy's team is responsible for. So we're trying to bring all of American industry into places like this so that we can get better and better at what we do.
Yeah. And of course, we're having this conversation as you're exponentially growing production of key missiles and interceptors, things like that, interceptors and PAC-3 Patriot missiles, which I know parts and components of both of those programs and others are made here. So, Secretary Duffy, it's well documented that we've seen these drawdowns in stockpiles of some of these critical missiles and munitions. I mean, even just in the last couple of days, reports of the U.S. military rationing some interceptors, and the government telling some allies that maybe they're going to have to wait a little longer for their orders of some weapons systems. Your response to that? How would you describe the current situation?
Well, my response to it is here we are responding to the need for us to really ramp up the deterrence and the munition stockpiles for our country. We all know the threats are great across the world, and we've put the challenge to industry, and industry is responding. Jim and his team walked us through, as he mentioned, this great partnership with Hadrian and General Motors is an opportunity to bring really America's strength, which is our industrial and economic might, to bear on the problem of how do we protect the American people, and how do we ensure that we've got the munitions, the military force that we need. And in the meantime, we're creating 2,000 jobs here in Dallas, 6,000 across the country just in this project alone. Across the country, we're seeing the kind of growth we need to ensure that we can supply the military what they need to ensure that we can deter any threat, and also bring that kind of reindustrialization to our population in America.
For Lockheed, Jim, this is part of an $8 billion-plus investment over the coming years to build out and expand your missile production and capabilities here. How quickly can you ramp production of something like Patriot missiles, and what should we expect next year and beyond?
So we are tripling or quadrupling the production rate of these kinds of defensive and sometimes strike missiles. Right. That is not easy to do as one company. And that's why we need a lot of American industry to partner with us. But we have a plan, a joint plan to get from, for example, 600 Patriot missiles a year, which is the typical sort of run rate, to 2,000-plus eventually over a reasonable amount of time. So we're going to do this, we're going to do it fast, we're going to do it effective, and we're basically automating this and other sites in a way that can make that happen. So the automation part, the robotics, the advanced additive manufacturing, those are the kinds of skill sets that are going to enable us to meet those kinds of goals for the department. And the other thing I say to everybody I meet: do not underestimate the American workforce. Like Mike said, we're going to add 6,000 people just in our company to work on these products, but we're doubling, tripling, or quadrupling the production rate because the American worker can either transition or be hired to use those new technologies to do things more efficiently and effectively than we ever could before.
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Taiclet, J. (2026, October 14). Lockheed Martin CEO: Defense demand is not fleeting, it's permanent [Interview transcript]. CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3062522/
MLA
James Taiclet. "Lockheed Martin CEO: Defense demand is not fleeting, it's permanent." CNBC Television, 14 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3062522/.
BibTeX
@misc{taiclet2026_3062522,
author = {James Taiclet},
title = {Lockheed Martin CEO: Defense demand is not fleeting, it's permanent},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {oct},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3062522/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
