Trump administration plans to take stakes in drone companies, aiming for a 300,000 target

According to sources with knowledge of the matter, the Trump administration is in negotiations with a group of drone companies regarding financing agreements, with the core aim of expanding domestic manufacturing capacity and reducing procurement costs. Leading these negotiations is the Pentagon's Strategic Capital Office, an agency established by the Biden administration specifically to provide financing for companies related to the national security supply chain, currently holding approximately $210 billion in loan authorization.

It is reported that potential transaction targets include three companies: Performance Drone Works, which won the Army reconnaissance drone contract; Unusual Machines, a supplier of drone components; and Neros Technologies, a venture-backed small first-person view drone startup backed by Sequoia Capital. It is worth noting that among the shareholders and advisory board members of Unusual Machines is Donald Trump Jr. Sources say that some agreements may include both debt and equity financing, meaning that the U.S. government will directly hold shares in these companies.

The financing negotiations align closely with the Pentagon's "drone supremacy" plan. This plan has a total budget of $1.1 billion, aiming to stockpile approximately 300,000 low-cost attack drones by the end of 2027. However, there is a significant gap: the U.S. currently produces no more than 100,000 drones annually, whereas Ukraine's output last year reached 4 million units. The Pentagon's target procurement price is about $5,000 per drone, but many American-made drones are priced tens of thousands of dollars above this limit, with both capacity and costs urgently needing breakthroughs.

Signals at the budgetary level are equally strong. The Pentagon has requested over $54 billion in funding for its drone warfare hub, the "Defense Autonomous Combat Cluster," while the budget for this agency in the current fiscal year was only about $225 million. If the new budget is approved, there will be a fundamental change in the scale of U.S. military drone procurement.