From engineering powerhouse (Seattle) ---> to accounting sloth (Chicago) ---> to lobbying leviathan (Wash D.C.)

The arrow of entropy and decay is very clear.

Push them to divest themselves of the defense industry acquisitions they have made over the past few decades. Boeing hasn't done so much in the way of DoD R&D as they have bought the firms that have. And stamped the Boeing logo on their products.

There is a display case in one of their public tour entrances with models of Boeing's past and present product lines. Including a model of the XB-70. I don't recall them being around when the drawings for that were still blank.

Possibly they expect some big arming up concerning China/Pacific and Russia as well. So why not just move group HQ next door to the biggest customer and decision makers?

Boeing has had a rather large presence in the DC area for a number of years and I'm sure they have a few open offices available for the move. Perhaps the rent district in Chicagoland is a bit too costly in their current balance sheets?

Precisely and sadly. Play taps.

Boeing is already here though.
 

Boeing has had a considerable presence at the Long Branch complex since about 2015. I was on the construction team (SLF telecom engineer, not employed by TBC). Yes there are some very cool secret squirrel parts of that facility used for demos and training but much of it is admin, sales, and support in addition to relationship building. It's not much of a stretch to relocate the HQ here. They'll be across the street from Amazon on one side and the Pentagon on the other. Not that this bodes well for Commercial Airplanes but it could be worse.

It's Douglas Aircraft all over again.

Do they intend to sell their airliner business? Then a move right in front of the DoD would make sense.

Perhaps Airbus should open an office nearby. Boeing's recent performance on military projects is not great in every instance.

I think that is absolutely the end game. The crony capitalism of defence contracting fits perfectly with the mindset and skills of the current senior Boeing management. I predict they will load up Boeing Commercial with all the Boeing debt, spin it off into Chapter 11 and then have some vulture fund scoop up what is left and finish running it into the ground.

Privatization of the profits and socialization of the loses, it’s the American way of business.

Good idea for Airbus - the main mission of the office would be to keep pressure on Washington bureaucracy and Boeing to continue have contracts (and projects) like the new generation of tankers for the USAF.

“Perhaps Airbus should open an office nearby.
Boeing's recent performance on military projects is not great in every instance.”

Like Airbus Americas Inc HQ USA
2550 Wasser Terrace #9100, Herndon, VA 20171, United States
or
Airbus Inc Space and Defence
1525 Wilson Blvd STE 500, Arlington, VA 22209, United States

Yes you have. Two years for a line of code and some wiring is just public theatre…

That's quite a simplification of what has been done.

The theater was largely the continuous denials, etc.

Reading between the lines, it could very well be, Boing did give up on "building commercial airplanes". The B777 was an excellent one, the B787 is technically "not bad", though way over budget and it shows, Boing has no comprehension how to build commercial airplanes (IE technology is not important).

The board/management instigated idea to "spread" the development risk, by outsourcing nearly all development and production, worked out even worse than the over-budget/time of the B777 (add to that the consequence of limited internal knowledge of the core technologies). The board/management decision to give the B737 another MAX life worked out dramatically, a $20B+ costing event never seen in Boing history and probably US airline experience. And the board/management decision to extend the B777 life into an -X (in itself not that bad), which in turn exploded on approval tests and started disclosing significant cheating (attempts ?) on certification.

Boing got rid of the experienced developers/engineers, and I did not see a significant amount of new hiring announcements of suitably experienced people to do this kind of state-of-the-art development/engineering work (correct me, when I am wrong). Which more or less implies, there is no development for an 321XLR competitor, no NMA, no A350 competitor.

And the most important aspect is that all public Boing communications is showing a focus on the finances and seemingly neglecting the core engineering stuff (which in the end is the reason why a customer wants to buy -advanced technology- Boing airplanes and consequential the finances exist). KLM biting the bullet and migrating to Airbus should be a clear indication, IE no new developments in that area (KLM especially wanted to increase fuel efficiency, the green-look).

Or so to say, there is a lack of mental connection between Boing board/management and the core reason why customers would be prepared to select Boing aircrafts. Not good.

They don't seem to earn that much money anymore even with programs that sell well by number. Well there is the parts and services business to make money with but still this can't have been the plan it seems?

Isn't the US Supreme Court in Washington? It'd save on the executives travel costs.

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!

I think the fix is in on that score, but pretty funny anyway.

The principle of Privatization of the profits and socialization of the loses, unfortunatelly started to spill over to other countries too, Europe included. And if Boeing will concentrate on DoD contracts in the future and abandon commercial airplanes, this might be another threat to world peace. To sell and get a good price for military products, there is nothing better than a good, decent war somewhere in the area of interest.
Why not run for the Mars? Public money would still flow, but not to death-and-destruction bringing products.

There will be a lot of new and different stuff needed for pacific conflict scenarios that we might face sooner than later. Boeing is right to expect big defense business. But they would not be right splitting off the commercial airliner subdivision. Especially now that it needs to catch up on latest technology, software and robot manufacturing that is already used in the military side of the business.