U.S. President Donald Trump with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announces the F-47 6th generation fighter jet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington D.C., U.S., March 21, 2025. /VCG

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday announced the award of the contract for the development of the U.S. Air Force's next-generation fighter jet to Boeing.

Trump, the nation's 47th president, said in the Oval Office that the F-47 fighter jet "will be the most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built."

Trump claimed that the F-47 is "the world's first sixth generation fighter jet" in a video posted by the White House on X platform.

"The Next Generation Air Dominance Platform (the F-47) contract is a monumental leap forward in securing America's air superiority for decades to come," Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force Gen. David Allvin said in a statement.

"The F-47 will have significantly longer range, more advanced stealth, be more sustainable, supportable, and have higher availability than our fifth-generation fighters," said Allvin.

The Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) contract for the program is expected to be worth approximately $20 billion, although, across the life of the program, Boeing is in line to receive hundreds of billions of dollars in orders, The War Zone, a defense-analysis website, reported.

Each copy of the jet, once series production commences, has been estimated in the past to cost upwards of $300 million, said the report.