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The U.S. Air Force\u2019s interceptor drone deal with Trump\u2011backed Powerus tightens family links to the Pentagon as Washington pivots to cheap AI drones against Iran.<\/p>\n
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The U.S. Air Force has struck a weapons procurement agreement with Powerus, a drone company backed by President Donald Trump\u2019s sons, further tightening ties between the Trump family\u2019s business interests and the Pentagon as the U.S.\u2013Iran war grinds into its third month.<\/p>\n
According to\u00a0Bloomberg<\/a>, the Air Force has agreed to purchase an undisclosed number of interceptor drones from the West Palm Beach-based firm, which is supported by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. through their investment vehicle Aureus Greenway Holdings.<\/p>\n Powerus co-founder and president Brett Velicovich told\u00a0Bloomberg<\/a>\u00a0the company will sell the drones to the Pentagon after a demonstration at a facility in Arizona, describing the agreement as Powerus\u2019s first contract to sell weapons to the U.S. military.<\/p>\n He declined to disclose the scope or value of the order, and officials did not comment on quantities, but the report notes that the Pentagon often makes limited purchases when evaluating new systems before committing to larger programs of record.<\/a><\/p>\n The contract underscores how the U.S. is racing to field cheaper counter\u2011drone options as Iran and its proxies lean heavily on low-cost Shahed-style one-way attack drones in the current conflict. <\/p>\n Analysts and officials have warned that firing multimillion\u2011dollar Patriot or THAAD interceptors at $30,000 drones is economically unsustainable, pushing the Pentagon toward smaller, expendable systems that can be deployed in large numbers.<\/p>\n That shift is already visible on the battlefield. In March, Ukrainian and U.S. officials said Washington had rushed roughly 10,000 AI-enabled Merops interceptor drones, originally developed and combat-tested in Ukraine, to the Middle East to protect U.S. forces and partners from Iranian drone swarms.<\/p>\n Reports from the manufacturer and defense analysts say Merops units combine a command station, launch platforms, and fleets of autonomous interceptors that rely on onboard machine vision rather than GPS or satellite links, allowing them to hunt and destroy drones even in heavily jammed environments.<\/p>\n The system has reportedly scored more than 1,000 kills against Russian and Iranian-made drones in Ukraine and has now been deployed in Poland, Romania, and U.S. bases across the region, illustrating how quickly novel counter\u2011drone tools can move from experimentation to mass deployment.<\/a><\/p>\nCheap interceptors for a drone-saturated war<\/h2>\n