Powerus, a relatively new drone maker, is positioning itself for Pentagon contracting even as federal procurement rules collide with the company’s ownership ties to President Donald Trump’s sons. According to the Associated Press, the company is seeking armed-drone contracts at a time when the Trump administration has put a ban on importing armed drones from China, and the Pentagon has set aside $1.1 billion to build U.S. manufacturing capacity.
The AP report said Powerus is “flush with cash and ballooning in size” as it buys other companies competing for defense work, including companies that make parts used in military systems. Powerus also stands out for one factor that has drawn attention beyond its technology stack: it is partly owned by Trump’s two oldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, told AP that the ownership arrangement could raise ethical concerns. “It’s corruption,” Clark said. “Government decision makers will feel pressure to use contract awards to enrich the president’s family.”
Powerus rejected that characterization. Brett Velicovich, a co-founder of Powerus, told AP that he sees no conflict between the company’s ownership links and its pursuit of government money. “There’s no conflict there. Whatever they’re doing, is what they’re doing,” Velicovich said, adding that the company’s work is not driven by politics.
Powerus was founded about a year before the AP report by U.S. Army Special Operations veterans, and the company makes drones for commercial uses such as spreading fertilizer and putting out forest fires, the report said. But Powerus has been scaling quickly to supply the Defense Department with armed drones like those used in Ukraine, Russia and, more recently, Iran’s operations that affect Gulf states allied with the United States, according to AP.
AP said Powerus has bought three rivals in the past six months and plans to buy more. To support what it described as an acquisition spree, the company raised $60 million from investors. The company is also hoping to access additional financing through a “reverse merger,” in which a private company gains a public stock listing by buying a company already on the market, often one with little or no operating business.
In Powerus’s case, the public company is Aureus Greenway Holdings, a Florida firm partly owned by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., AP reported. The report said the holding company has a limited business footprint, including some golf courses, and that it is listed on the Nasdaq exchange. It also said Donald Trump Jr. is the brother most involved in federal contracting ventures through a venture capital fund called 1789 Capital.
The AP report said 1789 Capital began as a relatively small investor before Trump’s reelection, then expanded rapidly—making Don Jr. a partner shortly after Trump’s victory and then investing in 25 companies in one year. It added that Pitchbook data provided to AP indicated 1789 Capital had made only six purchases in the previous two years, and that many of its targets appear to be seeking federal contracts or taxpayer funds.
AP also reported that Don Jr. and Eric Trump started an investment firm aimed at buying stakes in U.S. companies intended to help Trump “revive America’s manufacturing base.” The report said that after AP asked Trump’s chief business lawyer about language in a regulatory filing describing the firm as targeting companies seeking federal grants, the lawyer filed a new document removing that language.
In response to questions about why Powerus chose to merge with a Trump-linked Nasdaq listing rather than with the many other public companies on the exchange that have little or no operations, Velicovich told AP he was not a finance specialist and did not know the answer. He said, “Our focus is 100% on getting the right technology in the hands of the warfighter,” regardless of who the investors are.