Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.
If you had to guess, how much do you think the U.S. Department of Defense spent on lobster tails last year? It seems like a silly question, like asking how much the Department of Transportation spent on Koosh balls. But take it seriously for a second. How much shellfish could the military possibly consume? A million dollars’ worth? Two?
Quite a bit more than that, actually! In 2025, across more than 1,600 individual transactions—averaging more than four a day—the department formerly known as defense laid out $81.5 million on lobster tails. That’s more than the reported net worth of the Emily Blunt–John Krasinski household. More than the entire estate Gene Hackman left behind when he died last winter. More than the best soccer player of all time makes in a year. Would the U.S. military be better served by hiring Lionel Messi to play offense than by gorging on lobster? It’s a valid question, but Secretary Pete Hegseth doesn’t seem to want to know the answer.
The lobster tail data comes from public records obtained by Open the Books, a nonprofit that turns a critical eye to government spending. A liberal advocacy group it is not: The organization purports to track the proliferation of “radical DEI” school curricula and “anti-Israel worldviews.” But it also routinely takes aim at the exorbitant expenditures of so-called Use-It-or-Lose-It September, the month at the end of the fiscal year when each government department must either plow through the rest of its budget or end up with an unusable surplus that could mean a lower budget the next year.
Under Hegseth, 2025 saw the Pentagon’s most expensive September since the George W. Bush years. Among its more absurd purchases were a $98,329 grand piano for the home of the Air Force chief of staff (an essential tool for military readiness), a $21,750 custom flute (to play our enemies to sleep?), sushi preparation tables worth $26,000 (gotta stay pumped on omega-3s), and $6.9 million worth of lobster tail.
The lobster number was lampooned by prominent Democrats, news outlets, and late-night talk shows. But $6.9 million in a single month is not an outlier in the Pentagon’s lobster tail spending, a symptom of the use-it-or-lose-it rush at the end of the fiscal year. It’s just about the 2025 monthly average. In fact, the department spent more than $7.4 million on individually frozen lobster tails in four separate months of last year, something that had happened before only once in Pentagon history, in October 2024.
I don’t pretend to know how many tails $81.5 million can buy a lobster lover, but I am desperate to find out. Prices vary widely; retail lobster tails can run from $7 to $30 apiece. I assume that the Pentagon gets a spectacular deal on its food purchases, both for patriotism reasons and for the volume of its orders. So let’s estimate that last year’s Department of Defense lobsters came in at somewhere between $4 and $10 a pop, or between 8 million and 20 million tails. No matter how the math shakes out, for a department with about 1.32 million active military personnel—the lobster contracts were all filed under an agency that provides “troop support”—that’s an absolutely staggering amount of crustacean meat. How many lobster tails did you eat last year? Was it between six and 15? If so, you’re probably a scraggly old ship captain from Maine and you’re eating like a member of the toughest military on Earth.
Before we move on to a different crustacean, just to give you a sense of how massive these numbers are: Though not all of this lobster came from U.S. companies—about a quarter of the 2025 lobster tail contracts went to businesses in Kuwait, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates—$81.5 million is more than 2 percent of the entire U.S. lobster industry. And that $81.5 million covers only tails. It doesn’t even come with the claws!
Among the defense departments of American history, this one is particularly hungry for shellfish. During Donald Trump’s entire four-year first term, the military consumed $108.4 million worth of lobster. When it’s not shelling out for those tails, Trump’s Pentagon is going nuts for Alaskan king crab: The military ordered it more than 600 times last year, spending over $17.6 million on the best long, spindly legs money can buy.
I don’t mean to suggest that members of the military don’t deserve good food. Support the troops, et cetera. But when the Pentagon is spending the hard-earned taxes we generated through endless days at the Starbucks counter, the Amazon warehouse, and the blogging mines, it could stand to be a bit more economical with its menu options. The Defense Logistics Agency, which awarded all the lobster and crab contracts, describes the food it provides troops as “subsistence” and “rations.” Is that what we’re calling a seafood tower these days?
In the military, there is a common belief that troops get served surf and turf right before a deployment or challenging mission. It’s not a foolproof warning—fancy foods come out for all kinds of occasions—but it’s not entirely false either. The tradition got a public airing in late February, when reports of troops receiving meals of steak and seafood prompted claims that the U.S. was about to go to war. On Feb. 26, one popular U.S. Army TikTokker named Lyna posted a video of herself eating a helping of giant crab legs in a military dining facility. She appeared to be enjoying the treat, but her caption betrayed some apprehension: “Chat … are we cooked?”
As you may recall, the U.S. did indeed start a war with Iran two days later. But that wasn’t the most disturbing part of the video. Lyna’s gorgeous crab legs were served as a haphazard jumble in a disposable takeout container, with a pile of loose green grapes on the side. If the military is going to serve extravagant meals, it should at least give its crustaceans an opportunity to shine. Where are the potatoes, the corn on the cob, the coleslaw, the melted butter? Maybe, having spent $12,540 on three-tiered fruit baskets last September, the Pentagon’s food chiefs are determined to get their money’s worth. It’s grape loosies and shellfish from now on!
