A drone company the president's sons part-own pitched Gulf states under Iranian attack, then won a Pentagon contract
Powerus, a drone maker Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. partly own, was running interceptor demonstrations for Gulf countries under Iranian attack in April 2026 — a war their father began. On April 30 it announced its first Defense Department contract, of undisclosed size.
What happened
Powerus announced a deal in March 2026 to bring aboard Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., which the Associated Press reported could give them sizable equity stakes; AP describes the company as partly owned by them. Co-founder Brett Velicovich told AP the company was running interceptor demonstrations in several Gulf countries — "Our team is doing many demos across the Middle East right now for our interceptors" — and declined to name them. Powerus raised $60 million from investors and said it hoped to gain a public listing through a reverse merger with Aureus Greenway Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed Florida golf company the brothers partly own. It is chasing $1.1 billion the Pentagon set aside to build up US manufacturing of armed drones after the administration banned imports from China. On April 30, 2026, Powerus announced its first contract to supply interceptor drones to the Defense Department, recorded by the House Oversight Committee's Democrats in a May 8 letter to the department's inspector general; Bloomberg reported the company declined to give the contract's terms or size.
Why it matters
The president launched the strikes that began the war, and a company his sons part-own is selling the defences: the sales drive "positions the company to potentially benefit from a war that their father began", AP reported. "These countries are under enormous pressure to buy from the sons of the president so he will do what they want," said Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer. "This is going to be the first family of a president to make a lot of money off war — a war he didn't get the consent of Congress for." Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at Washington University School of Law, told AP of the Pentagon money: "It's corruption. Government decision makers will feel pressure to use contract awards to enrich the president's family." Powerus denies any conflict — "Our focus at the company has nothing to do with politics," Velicovich said — and Eric Trump says he is "incredibly proud to invest in companies I believe in."
Sources
Associated Press; House Oversight Committee Democrats; Mediaite (relaying Bloomberg), apnews.com, oversightdemocrats.house.gov, mediaite.com, pbs.org