United States President Donald Trump’s son Eric is investing in an Israeli drone maker, raising concerns about a conflict of interest as the Trump family expands its business holdings during its vice president’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, 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 drones to map underground tunnels, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Drone maker Unusual Machines, which tapped Eric’s brother Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser in November 2024, is also investing in the merger, JFB said. JFB builds commercial and residential properties, including multi-family communities and shopping centers.
Xtend calls its drone a “low cost per kill,” appealing to the US Department of Defense. In November, the firm said it had signed a million-dollar contract with the Pentagon but did not disclose the value of the contract.
This month, Xtend was one of 25 companies selected to participate in the Defense Department’s Drone Dominance Program, an acquisition improvement effort designed to rapidly conduct low-cost, large-scale drone strikes.
Xtend also signed contracts with the Pentagon before Trump’s second term, including an $8.8m contract through December 2024.
“I’m incredibly proud to invest in companies I believe in. Drones are clearly the wave of the future. Xtend has incredible potential,” Eric Trump said in a statement to Al Jazeera.
“By combining XTEND’s operational capabilities and advanced AI capabilities with JFB’s implementation, infrastructure and buildout expertise, we see a clear opportunity to accelerate US manufacturing, increase production responsibly and support next-generation defense technology platforms built in America and ready for public markets,” said Joseph F Basile, Chief News Release Officer, JFBIII.
JFB did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment about the connections in its existing portfolio, which includes commercial properties such as the Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Florida and an escape room and defense contractor in Indiana.
“By combining our platforms with JFB, we are gaining the resources we need to expand our manufacturing capabilities in the US and gain access to US public markets,” Xtend CEO Aviv Shapira said in a news release.
Xtend did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
Renewal of Conflicts of Interest
The deal is the latest in a series of conflicts of interest that ethics experts say are related to the Trump family’s personal investments and whether its members are using the Trump presidency to further their own financial interests.
“The first thing that comes to mind is that the president’s family appears to benefit from the presidency,” said Kedrick Payne, senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center.
“In the past, a president would avoid even the appearance of the family benefiting from office, and if that could not be avoided altogether, the president would make statements to reassure the public that there was no special treatment being given to the family that would lead to that benefit. Now you don’t see any of that.” Payne told Al Jazeera.
JFB Construction also appointed former White House counsel Stephen Passantino to its board of directors during the merger.
The investment comes despite a Trump family company filing to trademark the president’s name on airports, but not plans to charge for the proposed renaming of one near his Florida home, the Associated Press news agency reported.
Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney who uncovered the filing over the weekend, said the applications were the first of their kind he had seen.
“While presidents and public officials have had landmarks in their honor, never in the history of the United States has a private company of a president sought trademark rights before such a designation,” Gerben wrote on his blog. “Let me be very clear: these are trademark filings that are completely unprecedented.”
During former President Joe Biden’s tenure, Republicans rallied against his son Hunter Biden for using his connections to the White House to advance his personal business interests.
“When he (Hunter Biden) got a board position at a company overseas, there was concern that he was using his name to get a high-profile job. There were no ties to government contracts, but his position based on his name was also controversial,” Payne said.
The Oversight Committee in the US House of Representatives alleged that the Bidens “participated in or benefited from business schemes” in a March 2024 committee hearing about Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
“We have learned that Joe Biden has taken action to advance his family’s get-rich-quick scheme,” James Comer, then chairman of the committee, said at the time.
Comer did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on whether he shared the same concerns about the Trump family.
“We’re talking about something more extreme: a kid benefiting from a government contract, at least indirectly through a company he owns, including lucrative Department of Defense contracts. It’s something we haven’t seen since Halliburton and Vice President (Dick) Cheney,” Payne said.
Representatives for the White House and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.