Annie Massa and Tom Maloney
A fund that counts President Donald Trump’s eldest sons as partners invested in a pair of small companies last year: a construction firm that builds Orange Theory Fitness locations and an operator of two Florida golf courses.
Just a few months on, those investments look quite different. Both companies recently made abrupt pivots into drones – a technology playing a key role in the US and Israel’s war in Iran.
In all, Trump’s sons have backed at least three drone companies since 2024 – all based in Florida, which is home to the US military’s Central Command and the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Since their father’s return to the White House, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump have leveraged the family’s status – and, on paper, made hundreds of millions of dollars – with a range of new deals and ventures in areas such as crypto. But few intersect as closely with government priorities as their push into drones.
It isn’t clear exactly how much these investments are worth to the Trumps so far. But Trump Jr and Eric are partners at a fund called American Ventures, which reported holding stakes in drone firms worth nearly $US750 million ($1 billion), according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The trio of deals demonstrates how big stock pops in drone-affiliated public companies can result in quick windfalls. That’s particularly true for American Ventures, which is backing drone makers as the Pentagon aims to spend about $US1 billion on related technology over the next two years.
Eric Trump and a spokesman for Trump Jr declined to comment. The Defence Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The deals come at a moment when unmanned aircraft are a key focus for the US military, which is deploying one-way attack systems for the first time in the Iran conflict and looking for cheaper ways to shoot down inexpensive enemy drones than using $US4 million interceptors.
Powerus, the company at the centre of the Trumps’ most recent drone deal, was co-founded by Brett Velicovich, a US army veteran and former Delta Force intelligence analyst who wrote a book called Drone Warrior.
Now, Velicovich said Powerus is looking to sell more to the Pentagon, while guiding shares of its company into the hands of ordinary investors. He wants additional funds to scale production to 10,000 small remote-controlled drones a month, from 1000 at present.
“The Trump family understands how important drone technology is to America right now,” Velicovich said in an interview.
Rather than go public through an ordinary initial public offering, Powerus announced this week that it will merge with a tiny Nasdaq-listed company, Aureus Greenway Holdings, which operates two golf courses just south of Orlando.
That deal starred a familiar cast: Dominari Holdings, the Trump-backed investment bank, advised on the transaction. Unusual Machines, a drone-parts maker that Trump Jr invested in, also participated. Dominari and Unusual Machines didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Weeks earlier, Eric Trump backed a similar reverse-merger plan for Israeli drone maker Xtend, which keeps a US headquarters in Tampa, not far from US Central Command.
“The United States has taken a clear stance in protecting Western allies, and I believe strongly in that mission,” Aviv Shapira, chief executive of Xtend, said in an emailed statement.
“We are proud that our technology helps safeguard the brave men and women serving in the military.”
Potential for conflicts of interest loom as the Trumps support companies working to secure government contracts, said Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defence program at the Centre for a New American Security in Washington.
All three of the Trump-backed drone firms court government business. Xtend said last year it received a “multimillion-dollar” Defence Department contract for attack drones, while Velicovich said Powerus’ subsidiaries sell products to the US government. Unusual Machines received an order last year for motors from the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division.
“It does create complications for how the government goes about issuing contracts,” Pettyjohn said. “It’s unclear how conflicts of interest play out, and who gets preferential treatment.”
Under the Trump administration, the Defence Department introduced a “Drone Dominance” initiative that seeks to arm US forces with hundreds of thousands of lethal unmanned aircraft. That goal has spurred on firms making devices that can destroy targets, spy on enemies and drop off supplies.
Last July, shortly after Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth unveiled the Pentagon’s drone focus, Aureus Greenway – then nothing more than a microcap stock that had been bumping along at roughly US60¢ a share for months – abruptly tripled in a day in a blitz of trading.
The following month, securities filings showed that American Ventures had amassed a sizable stake. When it announced its merger with Powerus this month, shares had risen to $US5.48 each. Even after giving back some of those gains, American Ventures’ holdings are worth about $US400 million, according to Bloomberg estimates.
Aureus Greenway declined to comment beyond its public filings.
Similar to Powerus, Xtend is going public by merging with a tiny company in Florida that, until recently, had nothing to do with drones. Last September, shares of that company – JFB Construction Holdings – shot up. American Ventures had amassed a stake.
‘While drones are hot, and the US needs more companies, it’s not clear how many will be sustainable.’
Stacie Pettyjohn, director of defence program, Centre for a New American Security
In the weeks leading up to the Iran war, JFB Construction said it would merge with Xtend – with backing from Eric Trump and Unusual Machines. At Wednesday’s closing price, the American Ventures stake is worth about $US340 million, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. JFB Construction didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Xtend said this month that it started mobilising drone fabrication equipment at the request of Israel’s Ministry of Defence. Asked whether its products were used in the Iran conflict, a spokesperson for Xtend said the company “does not comment on specific deployments”.
Unusual Machines brought on Trump Jr even earlier, as an adviser, after the 2024 election. He held a stake in the company as of December 2024, according to a filing. Those shares are worth more than $US7 million.
It’s not lost on industry executives that US Central Command has highlighted drones from the earliest moments of the Iran war.
“The situation in Iran has delivered a clear signal to the drone industry,” said Olaf Hichwa, co-founder of Neros Technologies, a drone manufacturer based in California. “The time to produce these systems is now.”
Last month, the Pentagon convened 25 companies to carry out the first competition phase of its Drone Dominance program. Xtend was part of the group but was not ultimately selected from the first round of so-called “fly-offs”.
Powerus didn’t participate in the first round, Velicovich said, but the company is “paying very close attention” to subsequent rounds.
Pettyjohn, from the Centre for New American Security, warned that hype over done manufacturers may not ultimately match the speed of technological change and the vagaries of government contracting. “While drones are hot, and the US needs more companies, it’s not clear how many will be sustainable,” she said.
Bloomberg
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