Pete Hegseth’s defense contractor DISASTER turned artillery production into a half-billion-dollar dumpster fire.
Picture this: robotic arms bursting into flames. Toxic black smoke coating workers' lungs. A factory floor littered with metal shards workers nicknamed "tooth fairy" visits. Sinking foundations. A literal dumpster fire.
This is a $533 million taxpayer-funded artillery plant built by General Dynamics, one of America's largest defense contractors, that never produced a single usable shell.
The Mesquite, Texas facility was supposed to churn out desperately needed 155mm artillery shells for Ukraine. Instead, it became a case study in corporate incompetence rewarded with more money.
General Dynamics executive Firat Gezen pitched the Army on unproven "flow-forming" technology from a Turkish company, Repkon, that had NEVER received a Pentagon contract and had never even manufactured the specific shell model needed.
Warning signs were everywhere. The Army rushed ahead anyway, exploiting wartime contracting loopholes that gutted competitive bidding and oversight.
Robot arms went "rogue," smashing equipment and injuring machinery. Workers discovered display shells at the grand opening ceremony were fake plastic props. Machines required nightly sledgehammer beatings just to function. The Chinese steel used possibly violated federal regulations. Shells that were supposed to be perfect cylinders turned out looking like soft serve ice cream swirls.
Temperatures inside equipment cabinets hit 140 degrees — hot enough, one inspector warned, that "you would not only have drives failing but also human lives failing." Meanwhile, CEO Phebe Novakovic kept telling investors production was "running as we anticipated." It wasn't. Not even close.
Here's where Hegseth's Pentagon takes center stage: in December 2025 — under his leadership — the government paid General Dynamics $26.3 million in "progress payments" for production lines that had ALREADY produced nothing. Sinc…
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