Not only is the coffee expensive, but the cups are also said to have been bought by the US Air Force.
Last year, the Pentagon published its seventh financial audit, but as in previous years, it was declared to be unsuccessful.
According to Bloomberg, the Pentagon Inspector General stated that although there is still a lot of work to be done and issues to be resolved, the process of rebuilding the financial books offered them a better concept of how to handle it.
“We have momentum, and there is strong commitment—and belief in our ability—to achieve an unmodified audit opinion,” said Chief Financial Officer Michael McCord in a statement. “The path forward is clear.”
However, as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE team seek to cut costs across the defense industry, previous spending has come under criticism.
According to Fox News, a 2018 congressional probe revealed that the Air Force was replacing coffee cups with broken handles instead of repairing them, resulting in significant financial expenditures for its KC-10 aircraft. Additionally, the cups may be reheated.
In 2018, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley wrote to Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson that paying such high fees for “something as simple as a coffee cup that is so fragile that it needs to be constantly replaced” was “simply beyond reason.” Another letter inquired as to whether less costly options had been taken into account.
The Air Force admitted in a statement to CNN that it was no longer buying the cups “used in large transport aircraft” as they looked for more cost-effective alternatives.
The Department of Defense (DOD) Inspector General’s audit from last year found that Boeing overpaid the Air Force by about 8,000 percent for spare parts, including $150,000 for soap dispensers.
A two-year audit in October 2024 found that the military branch paid $149,072 more than the market price for the soap dispensers, while the Air Force overpaid by around $1 million for 12 of the dispensers and a few other 46 replacement parts on its C-17 transport aircraft.
The assessment appeared to be “based on an inapt comparison of the prices paid for parts that meet aircraft and contract specifications and designs versus basic commercial items that would not be qualified or approved for use on the C-17,” according to a statement from Boeing, which denied the findings. According to the Independent, the inspector general looked over the hotline tip for the soap dispenser.
Social media users swiftly voiced their opinions; one person wrote, “At the expense of the taxpayer.”
Another person remarked, “There must have been some good cups.”
Nonetheless, a number of individuals who claim to be military personnel stated that they were not surprised by the audit.
Another responded, “As a Marine veteran myself, I can fully affirm this is standard Air Force behavior.”
As part of his cost-cutting efforts, Trump said the department has become a haven for waste, inefficiency, and financial mismanagement, telling Fox News, “We’re going to find billions, hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud and abuse.”
DOGE reportedly had access to the US Treasury Department’s payment system, which handles things like tax returns, Medicare, and social security payouts.