Don Jr. and Eric Trump have poured money into Powerus, a Florida-based defense start-up competing for Pentagon drone contracts, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

The company, formed in 2025, is competing for a slice of the Pentagon's $1.1 billion Drone Dominance initiative and is merging with a publicly traded golf company to list on the NASDAQ. 

The Pentagon's push to acquire its own drone fleet has been thrown into sharp focus by Iran's battlefield deployment of Shahed drones costing approximately $25,000 per unit, as the US burns through missile stockpiles priced at up to $13 million each. 

The venture comes after the President declared foreign-made drones a national security threat in December.

The pair faced a fierce online backlash to the WSJ story, with Eric firing back that drones are 'a much better investment' than newspapers. 

Left-wing pundit Ron Filipkowski said: 'I happened to think the sons of the president shouldn't profit personally from their daddy's warmongering from taxpayer dollars.' 

Liberal singer Bill Madden wrote: 'Not only is this morally reprehensible, how can this possibly be legal?'

Dominari Securities, an investment bank backed by the Trump brothers, is involved in financing the merger. 

The controversy is the latest in a string of deals the Trump brothers have struck in the booming US drone sector, as the administration intensifies its focus on domestic manufacturing amid the war with Iran. 

Eric invested in a merger between Israeli drone firm XTEND and a Florida-based construction company to bring the firm to public markets in February. 

Last year, Unusual Machines, another Florida-based drone firm, appointed Don Jr. to its board. 

Unusual Machines has won money from the Pentagon, including a contract for it to manufacture 3,500 drone motors and other parts.

Don Jr. purchased more than 331,000 shares of Unusual Machines, worth around $5.5 million on Monday, the Financial Times reported. 

Chinese-made drones, particularly from tech giant DJI, have accounted for the majority of commercial drone sales in the US for the past decade. 

The firm now faces a questionable future in US markets, given the administration's latest ban on foreign-made drones.