Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was called out after he tried to cosplay as Tom Cruise’s Top Gun character—even though he doesn’t have a license to fly a plane.
Hegseth’s pilot fantasy crash-landed after a right-wing account on X, @BehizyTweets, gushed about a self-promotional video posted Tuesday of the secretary being flown around in a fighter jet featured on Top Gun: Maverick.
“It’s settled. Pete Hegseth has to be the coolest Secretary of Defense in American history. I had no idea this guy could fly planes,” the account posted.
X’s Community Notes, a crowd-sourced feature implemented to prevent the spread of misinformation on the platform, swiftly and succinctly corrected the post with two words:
“He can’t.”
Hegseth, 45, was a passenger on the goofy Top Gun flight. The FA-18 Super Hornet was actually flown by Lt. Commander Dillon “Bodacious” Hamrick. Hegseth has no flight training or certification.
The community note has since been updated to be slightly less snarky, and as of Thursday, it reads, “Pete Hegseth did not fly this plane or cannot fly any plane currently. He has no known flight training or certification. He was in the back seat.”
Technically, neither Hegseth nor the Department of Defense ever claimed the Secretary was the pilot of the Navy F/A-18, and the correction on X is solely directed at @BehizyTweets. That being said, videos of the stunt posted by the “Department of War”—the Department of Defense’s “secondary title” per a September executive order—don’t exactly make clear that Hegseth wasn’t flying the plane.
On Tuesday, the “DOW Rapid Response” account posted a snippet of Hegseth’s promo package that showed footage of only the secretary in the plane while it was in flight. Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger opined, “They really are not saying but kind of trying to imply to people that he flew it.”
The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Bahahahhahaha they really are not saying but kind of trying to imply to people that he flew it https://t.co/0jVmmOXglx
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@AdamKinzinger) October 22, 2025
Military personnel have criticized Hegseth’s Top Gun stunt as a reckless waste of time and resources, particularly as the U.S. carries out controversial strikes against so-called “drug boats” in the Caribbean.
Senior fellow and director of the National Security Reform Program Dan Grazier told The Washington Post, “There are better uses of his time than in a simulator and on training flights for what is effectively a stunt. Not only are we inflicting casualties, but American troops are also in harm’s way. So I would prefer our nation’s leaders are keeping a closer eye on the ball.”
The stunt is yet another act by the Secretary of Defense to try and use the military as a prop for his own optics. Last month, he issued a highly unusual and expensive order to every US general stationed around the world to come to Virginia so that they could listen to him and President Trump ramble for hours about “warrior ethos,” beards, and physical fitness.
The post Pentagon Pete Hit With Humiliating Fact Check Over Top Gun Stunt appeared first on The Daily Beast.
