United States President Donald Trump’s son Eric is investing in an Israeli drone manufacturer, prompting renewed conflict-of-interest concerns as the Trump family expands its business holdings during its patriarch’s second term as president.
Eric Trump is investing in a $1.5bn merger between Israeli drone maker Xtend and Florida-based JFB Construction Holdings, a small construction company, in a deal aimed at taking Xtend public this year, JFB said in a news release on Tuesday.
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Xtend is an Israeli company whose products have been used by Israel’s military in Gaza, including using its drones to map underground tunnels, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Drone maker Unusual Machines, which tapped Eric’s brother Donald Trump Jr in November 2024 as an adviser, is also investing in the merger, JFB said. JFB builds commercial and residential properties, including multifamily communities and shopping centres.
Xtend touts its drones as “low cost per kill”, which has appealed to the US Department of Defense. In November, the firm said it had solidified a multimillion-dollar contract with the Pentagon but did not disclose the contract’s value.
This month, Xtend was among 25 companies selected to participate in the Defense Department’s Drone Dominance Program, an acquisition reform effort designed to rapidly field low-cost, attack drones at scale.
Xtend also secured contracts with the Pentagon before Trump’s second term, including an $8.8m deal in December 2024.
“I am incredibly proud to invest in companies I believe in. Drones are clearly the wave of the future. Xtend has unbelievable potential,” Eric Trump said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.
“By pairing XTEND’s operating system and advanced AI capabilities with JFB’s execution, infrastructure and buildout expertise, we see a clear opportunity to accelerate US manufacturing, scale production responsibly, and support a next-generation defense technology platform built in America and ready for the public markets,” Joseph F Basile III, chief executive officer of JFB, said in the news release.
JFB did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment about the connection between its existing portfolio, which includes primarily commercial properties like a Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in Florida and an escape room in Indiana, and a defence contractor.
“By combining our platform with JFB, we are acquiring the resources we need to scale our manufacturing capabilities in the US and gaining access to the US public markets,” Xtend CEO Aviv Shapira said in the news release.
Xtend did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
Renewed conflict-of-interest concerns
The deal is the latest in a series of conflict-of-interest concerns surrounding the Trump family’s personal investments and whether its members are using the Trump presidency to advance their own financial interests, according to ethics experts.
“The first thing that comes to mind is another example of the president’s family appearing to profit from the presidency,” said Kedric Payne, senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center.
“In the past, a president would avoid even the appearance that the family was benefitting from the office, and if that couldn’t be completely avoided, the president would make statements to reassure the public that there was no special treatment provided to the family that could lead to this benefit. Now, you don’t see anything like that.” Payne told Al Jazeera.
JFB Construction also appointed Stefan Passantino, a former White House attorney, to its board of directors amid the merger.
The investment comes even as the Trump family company has filed to trademark the use of the president’s name on airports but said it doesn’t plan on charging a fee at least for a proposed renaming of one near his Florida home, The Associated Press news agency reported.
Josh Gerben, a trademark lawyer who uncovered the filings over the weekend, said the applications were the first of their kind he’s ever seen.
“While presidents and public officials have had landmarks named in their honor, a sitting president’s private company has never in the history of the United States sought trademark rights in advance of such naming,” Gerben wrote on his blog. “I should be very clear: these are trademark filings that are completely unprecedented.”
During former President Joe Biden’s term, Republicans rallied against his son Hunter Biden for using his connections with the White House to advance his personal business interests.
“When he [Hunter Biden] got a board position with a company overseas, there were concerns that he was using his name to secure a high-profile job. There were no ties to government contracts, but even the appearance that he had a position based on his name was controversial,” Payne said.
The Oversight Committee in the US House of Representatives alleged that the Bidens “participated or benefited from the business schemes” in a committee hearing in March 2024 about Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
“We have learned that Joe Biden has taken action after action to further his family’s plans to get rich,” James Comer, the committee’s then-chairman, said at the time.
Comer did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment about whether he shared the same concerns about the Trump family.
“We’re talking about something far more extreme: a child receiving benefits from government contracts, at least indirectly through a company he owns, including lucrative contracts with the Defense Department. That’s something we haven’t seen since Halliburton and Vice President [Dick] Cheney,” Payne said.
The White House and Trump Organization representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
