The U.S. government quietly spent hundreds of millions of dollars beyond the publicly acknowledged $400 million valuation of a Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8 so that President Donald Trump could fly in a luxury-configured aircraft that has since proven unable to meet security requirements, according to a New York Times report published Saturday.

The jet, donated by the Qatari royal family, was recently grounded after security measures — which Trump personally approved — were found unable to withstand a credible threat from Iranian proxy forces, the Times reported.

"The reversal exposes the potential risks that the government took to satisfy Mr. Trump's demand for an aircraft befitting the grandeur he believes should accompany his office," the Times reported.

According to the report, Trump was captivated by the double-decker aircraft's lavish appointments, which included a leather-lined bedroom, a lounge with suede seating, and a chandelier. His desire to fly aboard the customized jet compressed the overhaul timeline to approximately eight months — a process experts told the Times should have taken several years. Presidential aircraft retrofits typically involve extensive integration of secure communications, electronic countermeasures, missile defense systems, and hardened infrastructure — work that has historically spanned multiple years across administrations of both parties. The current Air Force One fleet, consisting of two Boeing 747-200B-based VC-25A aircraft, entered service in 1990 during the George H.W. Bush administration. Boeing is already under contract to deliver two replacement aircraft based on the newer 747-8 airframe, but that program has faced years of delays, complicating any parallel effort to retrofit a separate donated plane.

"Trump was personally engaged in making decisions about the retrofitting of the donated plane," sources told the Times, "giving the final approval on the features and security measures that would be included."

The compressed schedule significantly inflated costs. The government was compelled to spend "hundreds of millions of dollars" on top of the publicly acknowledged $400 million to procure training equipment in time for pilots to operate the 747-8, according to the report.

"The Pentagon has tried to mask the total price tag — including from Congress — by taking the funds from a classified budget for nuclear modernization," the Times reported. The Department of Defense is generally required to notify congressional defense committees of significant reprogramming of appropriated funds; drawing from a classified nuclear modernization account would place such spending outside normal oversight channels.

The consequences of the accelerated retrofitting emerged earlier this month during a presidential trip to Turkey, when the Secret Service identified a credible threat from which the newly configured aircraft could not adequately protect the president, the Times previously reported.

Earlier this week, the White House announced that the Qatari-donated jet would be taken out of service for what officials termed "PLANEMAXXING."