That is the estimated total cost of ownership of a planned 2,400 aircraft fleet over a 50 year life span, an unprecedented measurement and a number designed to scare.
Last Pentagon briefing I sat in (last week) included crew and maintainer salaries and compensation in the stated total cost of ownership for a particular program, which I have never seen before. The Chief didn’t like that and asked for life cycle cost absent personnel. Point being, throwing around numbers like this without knowing the definition of the term is fairly meaningless, so folks shouldn’t get too worked up or too comfortable with a given “cost” until they know what goes into it... or what doesn’t. What most people think of when you say cost is average unit manufacturing cost (AUMC), although the total RDT&E cost is significant but gets diluted by producing large number of units, and total life-cycle cost is critical to keep under control but more of interest to long term budget and logistics folks.
$1.4 trillion buys a lot of boots on the ground or lots of health care for our underserved vets. No one can justify the outlay for this pig. Technology is going to render this thing a brick very shortly. In 50 years there wont even be manned platforms flying. $1.4 trillion amortized over 50 years, no way. Those government numbers will go up by a factor of 5 at least just like everything else. We could be spending our money much more wisely.