Trump Sons Launch Pentagon Drone Firm to Replace Chinese Suppliers

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are investing in Powerus, a West Palm Beach drone company preparing to merge with a Trump family-backed golf-course holding company and list on Nasdaq, positioning itself to capture surging Pentagon demand created in part by their father's own policy restrictions on Chinese-made drones.

The reverse merger with Aureus Greenway Holdings, a publicly traded company funded by the Trump brothers, will take Powerus public on Nasdaq in the coming months. Investors in the combined entity include American Ventures, one of the Trump family's investment vehicles; Dominari Securities, the Trump brothers-backed investment bank; and Unusual Machines, a drone-parts company where Donald Trump Jr. serves as both a shareholder and advisory board member.

Powerus CEO Andrew Fox said the transaction is designed to accelerate growth. "The reverse merger would provide Powerus access to the public capital markets, giving the company the funding it needs to scale manufacturing and acquire more companies," Fox said. The company, which sells aerial and maritime drones, says it is working toward producing more than 10,000 drones each month, a figure that would exceed the current output of nearly every other U.S. drone manufacturer. Fox offered a candid assessment of where the market opportunity lies: the drone industry "is certainly going to grow faster than, say, golf courses are."

The timing is deliberate. The Trump administration, through the Federal Communications Commission, banned new foreign-made drones and drone components late last year, citing national security concerns. The FCC determined that drones and parts manufactured outside the United States could pose "unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States and to the safety and security of U.S. persons." Chinese manufacturers SZ DJI Technology and Autel Robotics were specifically named in the security review, which followed a 2024 defense bill requiring regulators to assess risks tied to foreign-made drones.

Those restrictions have opened a significant procurement gap. The Pentagon announced in December that it plans to spend $1 billion to purchase more than 200,000 drones by 2027, part of a broader effort to ramp up spending on small, lethal drones over the next two years. Powerus, founded last year and structured as a drone roll-up company pursuing acquisitions of other manufacturers, is explicitly targeting that federal spending pipeline. Reports indicate the company also plans to acquire Ukrainian drone technology for potential sale to the U.S. military.

The investment raises immediate conflict-of-interest questions. The president's sons are pursuing Pentagon contracts enabled by a trade ban their father's administration imposed, using investment vehicles and a bank directly tied to the Trump family. Eric Trump also holds an investment in Israeli drone maker Xtend, extending the family's financial footprint across the defense drone sector.

Critics have been direct. "Raise your hand if you elected @realDonaldTrump so his kids could make money off of government contracts," one prominent pro-Trump account posted on X, reflecting unease that has extended even into the president's own base.

No federal contracts have been publicly announced, and the Nasdaq listing has no confirmed date beyond "the coming months." The Pentagon has not commented on any procurement discussions with Powerus.