Stephen Feinberg wins Senate confirmation as Trump’s deputy defense secretary

The Pentagon is getting a new No. 2 official after the Senate voted 59-40 on Friday to confirm Stephen Feinberg as deputy secretary of defense.

Feinberg, a billionaire investor and businessman with no previous experience working at the Defense Department, is now set to play a key role in shaping the U.S. military’s modernization efforts and managing DOD’s sprawling enterprise.

President Donald Trump tapped Feinberg to work with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to shake things up at the Pentagon.

Ahead of his confirmation hearing last month, Feinberg told lawmakers that if confirmed, he would “prioritize the review of the Department’s investments in future technologies to ensure that the Department’s investments are aligned with national security needs.”

He suggested that the high-profile Replicator autonomous systems initiative, launched during the Biden administration, would be part of such a review.

Feinberg noted that he would seek opportunities to eliminate what he considers wasteful spending and reinvest the savings in other programs.

“If confirmed, I expect to lead a thorough review of Defense Department spending, incorporating bottom-up and topdown reviews to ensure that the President’s priorities are funded within the guidance provided by the Office of Management and Budget,” he wrote in response to advance policy questions from senators. “I welcome the opportunity to work with Congress to improve efficiency and increase readiness by rapidly fielding innovative technologies, reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisitions process, and passing a financial audit.”

Feinberg has endorsed the integration of more uncrewed systems into the U.S. military’s arsenal.

“This evolution is crucial for increasing our capacity and augmenting our operational forces with new/novel technologies that will provide both lethal and non-lethal capabilities,” he told lawmakers, noting that he planned to look at related efforts across doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities (DOTMLPF) and “advocate for changes that will capitalize on the pace of which technology is changing while ensuring robust cybersecurity measures to safeguard all of our capabilities.”

Feinberg was previously co-founder, co-CEO and chief investment officer for the global investment and private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, which has invested in companies that do business with the Pentagon.

Feinberg told lawmakers that he had “dozens of ideas” about ways to improve the structure and operations of the DOD.

“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. 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. This also enables us to have a much more nimble and agile acquisition capability that would also attract new entrants and promote more competition. This is not easy to achieve, but it can be done effectively,” he wrote.

Another idea he floated would be to “sponsor” private sector manufacturing companies to help them enter the DOD innovation ecosystem, including through “sole-source noncompetitive opportunities.”

“As we know, 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. We have great manufacturing companies in the United States who are excellent in developing and scaling capabilities who aren’t working with DoD today,” he wrote.

“There are creative ways under the [Federal Acquisition Regulation] to provide sole-source noncompetitive opportunities for these large companies to motivate them and make it possible for them to enter the defense industry. Often these types of companies, despite their great capabilities, are not conversant in DoD process or practices and requirements and competing with our big defense majors is very difficult. Being creative to give them help and a big jumpstart in non-traditional ways may be frowned upon because this is a departure from traditional competition-based acquisition policy. But it can be done legally and is very necessary to bring a much bigger part of our large industrial base into the defense industry. We have seen this in the past during wartime, and this is so important today due to a dearth of large manufacturing companies who know how to scale who are currently servicing DoD,” he added.

He noted that the secretary of defense would have to give the green light to implement these types of concepts, suggesting that they need to be “carefully looked at and determined if they are possible.”

He also recommended bringing more people with private sector expertise — including experience working at tech companies — into government.

Feinberg comes into the job as personnel from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — spearheaded by Elon Musk — are examining Pentagon spending, and the DOD is reviewing contracting policies, procedures and personnel to comply with Trump’s DOGE directive.

As of Friday, some of Trump’s other nominees for high-level Pentagon jobs have yet to be confirmed, including Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Phelan as Navy secretary and Troy Meink as Air Force secretary, among others.

Last month, Trump removed Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown from his position as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and also fired Adm. Lisa Franchetti as chief of naval operations.

Trump’s pick for Army secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was confirmed in February. Hegseth narrowly won confirmation in January as secretary of defense.