During his first term, President Donald Trump negotiated a $3.9 billion deal with Boeing for two new replacements for Air Force One that were supposed to be delivered by the end of 2024 but are still several years away from completion.

Now comes word that Trump has dispatched his top ally and aide, tech billionaire Elon Musk, to try to assist Boeing in speeding up the process of finishing the pair of heavily modified passenger jets, Newsmax reported.

At the same time, the president has also been loudly voicing his displeasure with the company's delays and is reportedly even considering pursuing options like converting other jets to be used temporarily as Air Force One until the ordered aircraft are finally completed.

Trump dispatches Musk, considers other options

The New York Times reported Wednesday that, per several anonymous sources, a "frustrated" President Trump has tasked Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team to attempt to hasten the past-due completion of two new modified Boeing 747s.

One option being considered to speed up the process is relaxing the security clearance requirements for some of the workers assigned to certain aspects of the project.

Another possibility under consideration is purchasing one or more other luxury jets or an already completed and used Boeing jet that could be retrofitted and put into service relatively quickly as a temporary Air Force One.

Making his frustrations known during an interview this week with Fox News host Sean Hannity, during which Musk was seated right beside him, Trump said that Boeing is "actually in default" in terms of the 2018 contract, and lamented, "They've been building this thing forever. I don't know what's going on."

"There's no excuse" for the delays

The report from The Times was seemingly confirmed later on Wednesday, according to Fox Business, when President Trump told reporters on the current 30-year-old Air Force One, "I'm not happy with Boeing. It takes them a long time to do, you know, Air Force One."

"We gave that contract out a long time ago as a fixed price contract, and I'm not happy with the fact that it's taking so long, and we may do something else," he continued. "We may go and buy a plane or get a plane or something. But I'm not happy with the fact that it's taking Boeing so long. There's no excuse for it."

The president's feelings were echoed by White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, who said in a statement, "It is ridiculous that the delivery of a new Air Force One airplane has been delayed for such a long time. President Trump is working on identifying ways to speed up the delivery of a new plane, which has been needed for a while."

Boeing CEO says "Musk is actually helping us a lot"

The Times' reporting was further confirmed Thursday morning, per Bloomberg News, by none other than Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, who revealed at a conference that Musk and his DOGE team had already been working with the company to find ways to speed up the process of finishing the new Air Force One replacement jets.

"He’s able to pretty quickly ascertain the difference between technical requirements and things that we can move out of the way," Ortberg said of Musk, whose SpaceX company is a top rival of Boeing. "I’m all in on trying to get these airplanes up and get the president his airplanes delivered to him, which is what he wants."

"The president’s clearly not happy with the delivery timing. I think he’s made that well known," the CEO added. "And Elon Musk is actually helping us a lot."

As noted, Trump initially negotiated the $3.9 billion deal with Boeing in 2018 to deliver two new Air Force Ones by the end of 2024, with Boeing agreeing to cover any cost overruns. The incessant delays, which have pushed the estimated delivery date to 2028 or later and been blamed on the pandemic, supply chain and workforce issues, price inflation, and other things, have cost Boeing around $3 billion so far.