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White House pushes ahead on Golden Fleet and the new Trump-class battleship with a request for billions of dollars for shipbuilding

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President Donald Trump’s massive $1.5 trillion defense budget request includes $65.8 billion for Navy shipbuilding. It also establishes the new Golden Fleet, providing funding for the new Trump-class battleship, the White House said.

The fiscal year 2027 shipbuilding request is a marked increase over last year, underscoring the Trump administration’s push to expand the fleet and industrial base.

On Friday, the White House released its budget proposals for the upcoming fiscal year beginning in October. The $1.5 trillion request is a 44% increase and the highest in decades

“The budget restores the readiness and lethality of the force by ensuring America’s warfighters are trained, equipped, and medically ready to fight and win,” the White House’s overview says.

Key to that is more funding for shipbuilding. “As waters around the world become increasingly contested, it is imperative that the United States be able to efficiently deliver the various naval platforms it requires, including both battle force and auxiliary vessels, to ensure maritime domain awareness and deterrence,” the overview document said.

The White House shipbuilding request supports the construction of 18 battle force ships and 16 non-battle force ships, twice the number requested last year.

The budget request includes initial funding for the Golden Fleet, its centerpiece Trump-class battleship, and next-generation frigates. The new funding request also supports work on the Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarines, critical naval capabilities. It’s unclear where these vessels fit into the procurement plan.

The broader White House plan also funds sealift and hospital ships, tankers, submarine tenders, and shipyard upgrades aimed at easing production delays.


A Virginia-class submarine sits in ice with people standing on top of it.

The budget also includes current vessels being built, such as Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarines. 

US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Bryan Mai



The Trump administration announced its plans for the “Golden Fleet” last December, as well as its desire to construct a new Trump-class battleship as flagship vessels. These ships are intended to deliver “dominant firepower and a decisive advantage over adversaries by integrating the most advanced deep-strike weapons of today with the revolutionary systems of the years ahead,” the Navy said.

John Phelan, the secretary of the Navy, said last December that “the future Trump-class battleship, the USS Defiant, will be the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans.”

The White House budget request also funds the Golden Dome missile defense system and artificial intelligence adoption and continues the development of the Air Force’s F-47 sixth-generation fighter, with a first flight planned for 2028.

Additionally, the request points to 12 “critical munitions” that it plans to procure. One of DoD’s highest funding priorities, the overview said, these munition investments “would generate expanded capacity in America’s defense industrial base, providing a foundation for future scalable munitions production.”

The White House didn’t respond to a request on what those munitions are. Recent deals between industry and the Pentagon have expanded and accelerated orders for more Tomahawk cruise missiles, as well as Standard Missile-6 interceptors, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptors, and Precision Strike Missiles. These weapons have gotten a workout in the Middle East.

Drones and counter-drone technologies are also listed in the budget as priorities, with the White House saying it is seeking “unprecedented investments” in these systems.

The request said “this funding would arm America’s military combat units with drones while also providing protection against the proliferation of inexpensive and proliferated unmanned systems by near-peer competitors, rogue states, and non-state actors.”


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Pranav Dixit

Meta is weighing major layoffs as it pours billions into AI

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Meta is gearing up for possible layoffs as it pours billions into AI, two senior employees familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

The sources said that some managers have been asked to prepare cost-cutting plans but were not told their scope or timing.

Reuters, which first reported about the potential layoffs on Friday, said that up to 20% of Meta employees could be let go. As of the end of 2025, Meta employed nearly 79,000 people, so a potential cut of 20% would mean roughly 16,000 jobs eliminated. That would be Meta’s most significant reduction since 2022, when it cut 11,000 jobs, and 2023, when it cut another 10,000. In January, Meta laid off 1,500 people in its Reality Labs division.

One person familiar with the company’s thinking told Business Insider the cuts could come as soon as a month.

“This is speculative reporting about theoretical approaches,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Business Insider.

If Meta moves forward with these cuts, it would signal a broader shift in the tech industry, as companies pour massive amounts of capital into AI infrastructure and talent while trimming the workforces that once powered their growth during the pandemic.

In recent weeks, Atlassian announced plans to cut roughly 1,600 employees, or 10% of its staff, tying the move to AI and a push for efficiency. Block has also slashed jobs, with CEO Jack Dorsey saying new AI tools allow companies to operate with smaller teams and more efficiency. These cuts signal a new strategy in Silicon Valley: as AI becomes more capable, the biggest technology companies are betting they can build faster and cheaper with fewer people.

Meta has said it plans to invest roughly $600 billion to build out data centers by 2028. The company has also offered pay packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years to lure top AI researchers to its new superintelligence team led by former Scale AI CEO Alexnadr Wang. Financing those bets, while satisfying Wall Street, means finding savings elsewhere. Head count is the most obvious lever.

On Meta’s January earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors the company is already “elevating individual contributors and flattening teams.” He added that he’s seeing “projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single, very talented person.” Last week, Meta created a brand-new AI engineering organization, where teams will have manager-to-employee ratios of up to 1:50.

Given Meta’s size, a 20% reduction at Meta would dwarf many of its Big Tech peercuts in absolute terms, wiping out more jobs than the entire head count of many midsize tech companies.

Meta’s urgency around AI comes after a difficult stretch for its in-house model efforts. The company faced criticism that early versions of its Llama 4 models produced misleading benchmark results, and it ultimately shelved the largest version of that model, called Behemoth, which had been due out last summer.

Its Superintelligence team has since been working on a new model called Avocado and Mango, which have reportedly fallen short of internal expectations and been delayed until May.

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