Boeing BA.NCEO Kelly Ortberg on Thursday said Elon Musk, the head of its space business rival SpaceX, is "helping us a lot" in navigating through delays in delivering Boeing's Air Force One presidential jet.

Ortberg told analysts and investors at the Barclays Industrial Select Conference that the company is making progress with the help of Trump's cost-cutting ally Musk in improving the delivery time, which will eliminate the risk of continued cost overruns.

Boeing's defense business booked pre-tax charges of $1.7 billion on several programs in the fourth-quarter, as the business continued to lose money on fixed price contracts it aggressively bid for in the previous decade. Its shares were down 1.8% in morning trading.

Ortberg also said he intends to bring U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Federal Aviation Administration Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau to Seattle where the planemaker's strongest-selling 737 MAX jet is produced. A source familiar with the matter said the meeting will happen sometime in March.

"Elon Musk is actually helping us a lot in working through the requirements ...so that we can move faster and get the president those airplanes delivered," Ortberg said.

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"And you know he's a brilliant guy so he's able to pretty quickly ascertain the difference between technical requirements and things that we can move out of the way and he's helping us in a big way."

Boeing's defense unit, which makes Air Force One, has taken multiple charges due to overruns on fixed price contracts.

Earlier this week, a senior administration official said the Air Force One program may be further delayed until 2029 or years later. Trump has said he was not happy with Boeing due to delays in delivering Air Force One planes, adding his administration might have to "do something else."

Ortberg said the supply chain for the 737 MAX is in good shape as the U.S. planemaker aims to grow output of the model to 38 a month by mid-2025. However, Boeing's supply chain team is working to assess the impact of a fire that hit a U.S. fastener producer in Pennsylvania this month.

Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal and Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bengaluru. Additional reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by David Gregorio