WASHINGTON — In his first public remarks since taking over as Acting Secretary of the Navy, Hung Cao told an industry audience that the service is open to business with new and alternative entrants, as long as they can supply what the service needs.
“I’m asking you, our partners in industry, to help us develop the best things out there, because lives that you saved are going to be our sons and daughters,” Cao said at the Modern Day Marine exposition today. “And that’s why I’m here today, to tell industry we need to move forward. The time is now. This is, this is a time for us to do generational changes for our military.”
Cao emphasized that “We’re going to look for different entrants to go in there and give us new equipment or better products.” But his comments had a different tone than those of OMB director Russel Vought at last week’s Sea Air Space conference, where he launched a broadside at traditional naval contractors.
“New entrants into this arena is the most important thing,” Cao said. “I’m not trying to bash the old, the big 8 companies. But sometimes they get, they kind of rest on the laurels, and I need the new entrants to give them some, you know, a little love.”
As an example of his thinking, Cao homed in on the question of how the Navy can get after its munitions shortfall.
“Why can’t I not buy my munitions from multiple sources? As long as it fits in that tube, as long as it fits on the aircraft, that’s all that matters,” Cao said. “Let’s just say I need 1,000 of these missiles. If this guy can give me 100, this other guy can give me 50, and this other guy can give me 200, eventually we’ll get to that 1,000, and not have to go through one single vendor.”
Cao’s comments come as the Pentagon is seeking a steep increase in munitions, amid ongoing operations in the Middle East that have burned through thousands of weapons from the US stockpile. The Pentagon’s budget request increases funding to $70.5 billion on missiles and other related line items for fiscal 2027 — up from roughly $24.4 billion in FY26. That translates to a 188 percent increase over what was approved in FY26, Breaking Defense previously reported.
The Navy is also seeking a massive increase in funding for shipbuilding. The service is requesting $65.8 billion for shipbuilding alone for FY27, a hike from the $27.2 billion allocated to shipbuilding in the FY26 enacted budget.
Cao emphasized that the Trump administration’s Golden Fleet initiative, which seeks to drive US maritime superiority, also encompasses revamping how the Navy acquires ships as the service moves toward implementing “tailored forces” to respond to a variety of threats, capitalizing on unmanned systems to augment legacy vessels.
“The Golden Fleet is not just about ships,” Cao said. “It’s the whole concept of reforming acquisitions and getting ships out there from high, low, right? You can’t use a destroyer for everything. It’s like, you don’t want to use a brain surgeon just to suture up some stitches. I mean, you can use a corpsman for that, right?”
Cao, who previously served as Under Secretary of the Navy, was tapped just last week to serve in his current post, following the departure of Secretary of the Navy John Phelan.
Cao originally joined the Navy as a seaman recruit in 1989, and eventually graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1996. He spent more than 20 years as a naval officer and completed deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, and retired from the service as a captain.
Following his military service, he became a vice president and client executive at CACI International. The Senate confirmed him to his post as Under Secretary of the Navy in October 2025.
Ashley Roque and Valerie Insinna contributed to this report.
