Trump-Owned Company Scores Defense Contract From Trump Administration

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

The U.S. Air Force will buy interceptor drones from a company that is partly owned by President Donald Trump’s two eldest sons, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are part owners of Powerus, a company based in West Palm Beach, Florida. The government will purchase an undisclosed number of drone interceptors after a demonstration in Arizona, Powerus president and co-founder Brett Velicovich said.

Bloomberg reported:

The deal represents the first sale of this kind of weapon — which can zip into the sky and blow up enemy drones — by Powerus to the US military. The company declined to detail the terms of the deal or the size of the contract, but the military frequently enters into such deals as it weighs whether to adopt a new weapons system.

The arrangement fits with a broader US push to counter cheap Iranian attack drones with similarly inexpensive interceptors instead of far pricier missiles. The US Army has already sent 10,000 AI-enabled Merops interceptor drones developed in Ukraine to the Middle East.

Last month, before securing the contract, one ethics scholar pointed out the issue with a defense contractor being partly owned by the president’s children.

“It’s corruption,” Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law told the Associated Press last month. “Government decision makers will feel pressure to use contract awards to enrich the president’s family.”

Last week, Eric Trump appeared on Fox Business after Foundation Industries, where he is an adviser and investor, won a $24 million Department of Defense contract to make humanoid robots for use on the battlefield.

“We have to win this race,” Eric Trump said at the time. “We have to win a lot of races, right? I got involved with crypto in a very big way because we had to win that digital revolution.”

Eric Trump was referring to World Liberty Financial, in which the Trumps have a majority stake. Last week, billionaire investor Justin Sun sued the company, alleging breach of contract.

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