Boeing

Boeing, founded in 1916, is the United States' largest aerospace and defence manufacturer and the world's second-largest defence contractor. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, it produces commercial aircraft, military jets, helicopters, and precision munitions, including the GBU-28 bunker-buster and the B-52 Stratofortress. On 1 April 2026, the IRGC named Boeing among 18 US technology and defence companies as legitimate military targets, citing provision of alleged AI targeting infrastructure for strikes on Iran.

Boeing also manufactures the SLS core stage for NASA's Artemis programme. The Artemis III SLS core stage rolled from Boeing's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans on 20 April 2026, travelling by Pegasus barge to Kennedy Space Center for Artemis III integration. In the autonomous combat aircraft domain, Boeing competed for the US Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) production award but was not selected. On 17 June 2026, the Air Force awarded the first funded CCA production contracts to Anduril (FQ-44A Fury) and General Atomics (FQ-42A), targeting 150-plus autonomous combat aircraft at under $30 million each; Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman were all excluded from the first production franchise.

Unlike the civilian tech firms on the IRGC list, Boeing's designation carries conventional military logic: its aircraft and munitions have been physically used in Operation Epic Fury strikes on Iran. The CCA exclusion is a different signal, the Air Force's preference for lower-cost, software-native primes over traditional defence integrators. Boeing's simultaneous roles as space contractor, strike-platform supplier, and failed CCA bidder capture the TWIN pressures on legacy primes: the cost-overrun scrutiny of legacy programmes and the disruption of autonomous platforms eroding traditional franchise contracts.