Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who is taking a tour of U.S. defense contractors, on Friday visited a Long Beach rocket maker, where he told workers they are key to President Trump\u2019s vision of military supremacy.<\/p>\n
Hegseth stopped by a manufacturing plant operated by Rocket Lab, an emerging company that builds satellites and provides small-satellite launch services for commercial and government customers. <\/p>\n
Last month, the company was awarded an $805-million military contract<\/a>, its largest to date, to build satellites for a network being developed for communications and detection of new threats, such as hypersonic missles. <\/p>\n \u201cThis company, you right here, are front and center, as part of ensuring that we build an arsenal of freedom that America needs,\u201d Hegseth told several hundred cheering workers. \u201cThe future of the battlefield starts right here with dominance of space.\u201d<\/p>\n Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, the company makes a small rocket called Electron \u2014 which lay on its side near Hegseth \u2014 and is developing a larger one called Neutron. It moved to the U.S. a decade ago and opened its Long Beach headquaters<\/a> in 2020. <\/p>\n Rocket Lab is among a new wave of companies<\/a> that have revitalized Southern California\u2019s aerospace and defense industry, which shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War. Large defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman<\/a> and Lockheed Martin moved their headquarters to the East Coast.<\/p>\n Many of the new companies were founded by former employees of SpaceX<\/a>, which was started by Elon Musk in 2002 and was based in the South Bay before moving to Texas in 2024. However, it retains major operations in Hawthorne.<\/p>\n Hegseth kicked off his tour Monday with a visit to a Newport News, Va., shipyard. The tour is described<\/a> as \u201ca call to action to revitalize America\u2019s manufacturing might and re-energize the nation\u2019s workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, a Democrat who said he was not told of the event, said Hegseth\u2019s visit shows how the city has flourished despite such setbacks as the closure of Boeing\u2019s C-17 Globemaster III transport plant.<\/p>\n \u201cRocket Lab has really been a superstar in terms of our fast, growing and emerging space economy in Long Beach,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cThis emergence of space is really the next stage of almost a century of innovation that\u2019s really taking place here.\u201d<\/p>\n Prior stops in the region included visits to Divergent<\/a>, an advanced manufacturing company in aerospace and other industries, and Castelion<\/a>, a hypersonic missile startup founded by former SpaceX employees. Both are based in Torrance. <\/p>\n The tour follows an overhaul of the Department of Defense\u2019s procurement policy Hegseth announced in November<\/a>. The policy seeks to speed up weapons development and acquisition by first finding capabilities in the commercial market before the government attempts to develop new systems.<\/p>\n Trump also issued an executive order<\/a> Wednesday that aims to limit shareholder profits of defense contractors that do not meet production and budget goals by restricting stock buybacks and dividends.<\/p>\n Hegseth told the workers that the administration is trying to prod old-line defense contractors to be more innovative and spend more on development \u2014 touting Rocket Lab as the kind of company that will succeed, adding it had one of the \u201ccoolest factory floors\u201d he had ever seen.<\/p>\n \u201cI just want the best, and I want to ensure that the competition that exists is fair,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Hegseth\u2019s visit comes as Trump has flexed the nation\u2019s military muscles with the Jan. 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, who is now facing drug trafficking charges to which he has pleaded not guilty. <\/a> <\/p>\n Hegseth in his speech cited Maduro\u2019s capture as an example of the country\u2019s newfound \u201cdeterrence in action.\u201d Though Trump\u2019s allies supported the action, legal experts and other critics have argued that the operation violated international and U.S. law.<\/a> <\/p>\n Trump this week said he wants to radically boost U.S. military spending<\/a> to $1.5 trillion in 2027 from $900 billion this year so he can build the \u201cDream Military.\u201d <\/p>\n Hegseth told the workers it would be a \u201chistoric investment\u201d that would ensure the U.S. is never challenged militarily.<\/p>\n Trump also posted on social media <\/a>this week that executive salaries of defense companies should be capped at $5 million unless they speed up development and production of advanced weapons \u2014 in a dig at existing prime contractors.<\/p>\n However, the text of his Wednesday order caps salaries at current levels and ties future executive incentive compensation to delivery and production metrics.<\/p>\n Anduril Industries in Costa Mesa is one of the leading new defense companies in Southern California. The privately held maker of autonomous weapons systems closed a $2.5-billion funding<\/a> round last year.<\/p>\n