The U.S. Air Force has quietly added a new name to its counter‑drone roster: Powerus, a West Palm Beach startup backed by Donald Trump’s sons. Bloomberg reports the Air Force has agreed to buy an undisclosed number of interceptor drones from the company, tightening commercial ties between the Pentagon and a firm supported by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. through their investment vehicle, Aureus Greenway Holdings.
Powerus co‑founder and president Brett Velicovich told Bloomberg the sale follows a demonstration at an Arizona facility and represents the company’s first weapons contract with the U.S. military. He declined to disclose the size or value of the order, and Pentagon officials offered no quantities—a common approach when the Defense Department makes limited buys to evaluate new systems before committing to larger programs.
The deal comes amid a broader shift in U.S. air defense strategy. As the conflict involving Iran and its proxies increasingly relies on cheap, one‑way “Shahed‑style” attack drones, officials and analysts say shooting multimillion‑dollar interceptors such as Patriot or THAAD missiles at $30,000 drones is economically unsustainable. That has pushed the Pentagon to pursue smaller, expendable, and often autonomous systems that can be fielded in mass.
A parallel example is Merops—an AI‑enabled interceptor system first developed and combat‑tested in Ukraine. U.S. and Ukrainian officials said roughly 10,000 Merops units were rushed to the Middle East in March to defend U.S. forces and partners from drone swarms. Manufacturer and analyst accounts describe Merops as a package combining a command station, launch platforms, and fleets of autonomous interceptors that use onboard machine vision (rather than GPS or satellite links) to hunt and destroy drones even in heavily jammed environments. The system has reportedly recorded more than 1,000 kills against Russian and Iranian‑made drones and has been deployed in Poland, Romania, and U.S. bases across the region.
Powerus’s Pentagon deal surfaces just weeks after Bloomberg reported the company was pitching interceptor drones to the United Arab Emirates, including versions aimed at Iranian Shahed‑136s. With Trump‑family–backed investors now financing a startup selling weapons into an active, policy‑shaped conflict, observers say questions about ethics, oversight and influence are inevitable—even as military planners race to close the cost and capability gap against an expanding drone threat.
For crypto and startup observers, the episode highlights familiar themes: rapid tech commercialization in response to urgent demand, private capital moving into strategic industries, and the reputational and governance risks that follow when politically connected investors back companies operating in conflict zones.
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