That was done, by executive order during wartime, to some underperforming manufacturing companies during WWII. Here's that story, by the Navy admiral who personally led the takeover of the plants.[2] The Navy fired the C-suite of the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, at 10 AM on December 8, 1943, for incompetence.
"Mr. McCoomb was informed that he, Mr. Alfred F. Smith, and the comptroller, Mr. Beeman, were informed that they were no longer on the payroll of the plant". Eventually the Government had to settle up with the stockholders, but the C-suite people were gone.
Are you proposing the federal government invoke The War Powers Act or The Defense Production Act and seize all of Boeing's production assets? During peacetime? Over engineering failures in the civilian sector? Does anybody actually believe that would fly in court?
Well… you can always invade someone and end these inconveniences of peacetime. Venezuela has a lot of oil very close to the US and recently disagreed with the US government about who was elected for their president.
Something like the Defense Production Act alone technically gives the government the authority to control civilian production in virtually any way if it meets a standard based on criticality to national defense (not hard to imagine the argument for boeing).
Using that power requires political support from the legislature and courts, I don't think we're there today, but if for example a critical fighter jet (or some other high visibility project) went south, boeing has been shitting the bed hard enough to support federal intervention.
Classified? We see their products every day... with a few exceptions, darn near every aircraft the US military flies today was designed, maintained, built or led by Boeing and/or it's affiliates. Their coverage spans drones, aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, rockets and more.
The civilian side of Boeing almost doesn't even need to exist.
So we're going to lambast the entire company because one arm has stumbled with two projects recently... ?
Perhaps we should nationalize and shut down Google because Gemini hasn't turned out to be that great.
>Perhaps we should nationalize and shut down Google because Gemini hasn't turned out to be that great.
I think you meant that sarcastically, in which case - Welcome to Hacker News!
And as for the military side of thing, you wouldn't believe the stories I've heard about that. Between the hanger queens they sold and Cold War superiority stuff they're still trying to sell...If they weren't notionally an "American" company then I doubt they'd still be in business.
They can't per say fire them. But they could start cancelling contracts if they think Boeing isn't going to deliver. And they can break up the company into smaller ones to foster competition this has happened in the past in other industries.
In the name of national security they could nationalize Boeing and then fire anyone they want. But this is a pretty big hammer, that comes at a price (and who really believes, the government will be more efficient at running Boeing?)
You not liking a company doesn't mean the federal government gets to nuke it from orbit...