Feb 17 (Reuters) – Eric Trump, son of U.S. President Donald Trump, is investing in a $1.5 billion merger between Israeli drone maker XTEND and Florida-based JFB Construction Holdings in a deal aimed at taking XTEND public.
Drone maker Unusual Machines, which tapped Eric’s brother Donald Trump Jr. in November 2024 as an advisor, is also investing in the merger, JFB said in a release on Tuesday.
The Trump family has been expanding its business ventures since Donald Trump’s return to office, including cryptocurrency sales that generated about $800 million for the family in the first half of 2025 alone.
The move comes as drones have become a top-selling item at the Pentagon and are playing a central role in the Ukrainian battlefield, where conventional warplanes are scarce due to dense air defense systems near the front lines.
The success of drones on the ground has also led to a spike in Silicon Valley investment in drone and military artificial intelligence startups, driving up the valuations of U.S. firms such as Anduril Industries and Shield AI.
XTEND’s AI-enabled systems are being used by the U.S. Department of Defense, Singapore, Europe, the U.K. and Israel Defense Forces, as of July 2025.
Other investors in XTEND’s merger include Israel-based Protego Ventures, Texas-based real estate development firm American Ventures and Miami-based Aliya Capital.
The all-stock merger is expected to close by the middle of 2026, after which the joint company will be renamed to XTEND AI Robotics and will be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker “XTND”.
(Reporting by Aishwarya Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)
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