Feinberg has suggested opening defense manufacturing opportunities like Ford and General Motors to boost the overall defense industrial base.
The U.S. Senate confirmed Stephen Feinberg as the deputy secretary of defense on March 14, moving him up to the number two position at the Pentagon behind Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Feinberg was confirmed in a 59–40 vote on Friday afternoon, more than two weeks after his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Hegseth congratulated Feinberg in a Friday post on social media platform X, saying, “His appointment is well-deserved and he’s the right man for the job—the stakes couldn’t be higher. Let’s get to work!”
As the co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, Feinberg comes to the Department of Defense with a background in private investment. Over the years, Cerberus has managed a variety of defense, aerospace, and private security business ventures.
During the confirmation process, Feinberg emphasized his interest in expanding the U.S. defense industry, including by tapping into major mass market manufacturers such as Ford and General Motors to help produce weapons systems for the military. He said that the current model for producing military vehicles and weapons has become too reliant on just a few defense industry manufacturers.
“We have too few fully capable product providers at DOD as there has been way too much consolidation and too much concentration among the big major defense players. This reliance on a few companies leaves DOD very exposed,” Feinberg wrote in a pre-confirmation questionnaire. “We have great manufacturing companies in the United States who are excellent in developing and scaling capabilities who aren’t working with DOD today.”
Feinberg said he would propose reforming the process for setting requirements for new weapons systems.
“I believe our program requirements need to be far less rigid, far less gold-plated, much easier to achieve, less costly, and much quicker to meet,” he wrote in his questionnaire. “We also need to stop changing the requirements once we set them. This is essential to be able to not only meet our program demands but also to meet them on time.”
By Ryan Morgan
