Winter

James Taclet @LockheedMartin CEO has made extraordinary admissions that his aerospace company has technology that is 'magical' and 'game-changing'. At a Q2 2025 earnings call to analysts 22 July, under pressure to explain a $1 billion cost blowout on a highly classified undisclosed Skunkworks program, the CEO made extraordinary admissions about the huge importance of this classified Government programme: "The [US Govt] customer's aware of and will become increasingly aware after today of the cost that the this program is putting on the company. And I think they're open to figuring out ways to make it more reasonable. As I said, while keeping the national security commitments that are required. So that's the explanation." “…it was disconcerting to us when we started to see the cost growth after we’ve done the review previously. But that’s the nature of something of this magical status” “This is a highly classified program that can only be described as game-changing capability for our joint US and international customers and therefore, it is critical that it be successfully fielded…”. Under continuous disclosure obligations any @LockheedMartin shareholder would ordinarily expect full details on such "game-changing" and "magical" technology because it clearly has a material influence on share price. But the US @SECGov has national security exemptions that legally allow LM to not reveal anything to shareholders about such sensitive Government projects. Intriguingly, CEO Taclet concluded: "We probably won't be able to talk about what that [tech] is for many years to come.  But I can assure you that it's gonna be in high demand for a very long time." One can only wonder what astounding tech Lockheed has tucked away in its Skunkworks hangar that might be magical and game-changing? The ultimate shareholders in this technology are of course the US taxpayers paying the bill. They're entitled to know if this secret tech program has been fully and properly disclosed to Congress. The appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Clause 7), mandates that "a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time". Congress has the legal authority to demand to know what these classified programs are and whether they have been fully and properly disclosed under the Constitution. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has failed its seventh consecutive annual financial audit for fiscal year 2024 (ending September 30, 2024), receiving a disclaimer of opinion from auditors. This means auditors could not obtain sufficient evidence to verify the accuracy of the department's financial statements, despite the U.S. Constitution's requirement for a regular statement and account of all public receipts and expenditures. While the DoD publishes annual agency financial reports as required, these audits reveal pervasive deficiencies that undermine the reliability of those disclosures to Congress. At least 44% of the US @DeptofDefense's $4.1 TRILLION total assets (approximately $1.8 trillion) fall under DoD reporting entities that also received disclaimers of opinion, meaning auditors could not verify or account for them due to insufficient evidence, material weaknesses, or scope limitations. For context, this represents an improvement over prior years' audits (e.g., around 50–63% of assets were insufficiently documented or unverifiable in FY2023, equating to roughly $2.4 trillion of $3.8 trillion in assets), but the DoD remains far from a clean (unmodified) audit opinion. What this means is that there are trillions of dollars in the black DoD budget that are unaccounted for, despite constitutional requirements Congress be briefed in detail. Will Congress do its job and will Americans get to see executive power held to account, Mr President @POTUS? teapawt.net/i/grok/share/HfGZTIryX… Lockheed, Earnings press release: news.lockheedmartin.com/2025… Earnings call audio: investors.lockheedmartin.com… Earnings call transcript: fool.com/earnings/call-trans…