Foundation Future Industries’ $24 million Pentagon robotics deal has become a corruption flashpoint after Eric Trump, the company’s chief strategy advisor and the president’s son, promoted the awarded contract on Fox Business.
The company secured the funding for its Phantom humanoid robots through US military research contracts tied to the Army, Navy, and Air Force, including an SBIR Phase III pathway that can move a federally funded technology from research into commercialization.
Fox Business reported Thursday that the company’s Phantom robots are intended for high-risk battlefield tasks, including breaching enemy sites, with the stated goal of reducing risk to American troops while competing with China’s advances in artificial intelligence and robotics.
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Eric Trump appeared alongside Foundation founder and CEO Sankaet Pathak on Mornings with Maria, saying, “We are America First. We have to win this race.” He also said the technology could “change industry, military application, hospitality,” adding that “the uses are unlimited” and “we must win this race.”
The $24 million figure appears to represent combined military research contracts rather than a single traditional Pentagon procurement award. Earlier reporting by NBC Bay Area found Foundation had received at least $18 million in US military contracts with the Army, Air Force, and Navy, with the work focused largely on research, equipment-building use cases, and supply transport rather than arming robots.
The award appears to have moved through the Small Business Innovation Research program designed to fund small-business research and development across federal agencies. The contract includes a Phase III designation that allows follow-on Pentagon work without a new open competition because earlier SBIR competitions satisfy federal competition requirements. That makes the contract pathway legally routine, but politically combustible because Eric Trump is both the president’s son and a public adviser to the company.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the deal “corruption in plain sight,” writing that Eric Trump “went on FOX to brag about winning ANOTHER multimillion-dollar contract from the Trump administration” and asking whether “the Pentagon [is] just a cash machine for Trump’s kids now?”
Foundation Future Industries is a young San Francisco humanoid robotics startup that appears to have emerged publicly around late 2024. Eric Trump’s role appears to have begun by March 2026, when TIME described him as an investor and newly appointed chief strategic adviser, shortly before the company’s $24 million Pentagon-linked robotics deal drew political scrutiny.
The optics are amplified by the Trump family’s growing proximity to defense technology. The Financial Times reported in October 2025 that a drone company backed by Donald Trump Jr., Unusual Machines, won its largest Pentagon contract to date from the US Army, covering 3,500 drone motors and other components, with plans for 20,000 additional parts the next year.
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