Shares of Unusual Machines, a relatively obscure Florida-based drone manufacturer, soared this week after the company secured its largest Pentagon contract to date—an order that’s put both the firm and its political connections squarely in the national spotlight. The contract, first reported by the Financial Times on October 24, 2025, tasks Unusual Machines with supplying 3,500 drone motors and related components to the U.S. Army, with the potential for an additional 20,000 pieces next year. The deal is seen as a milestone for the company, which has close financial ties to Donald Trump Jr., and comes as the U.S. government ramps up efforts to boost domestic drone production and reduce reliance on Chinese technology.
Unusual Machines, which manufactures NDAA-compliant drone parts—including motors, cameras, flight controllers, and goggles—has watched its stock price surge by more than 900% in 2025 alone. The most recent contract announcement sent shares up another 13% on October 24, closing at $12.84 after touching an intraday high of $14.34. After-hours trading pushed the price even higher, reflecting investor enthusiasm for the company’s sudden transformation from a niche supplier to a major player in the defense sector.
The company’s meteoric rise is due in no small part to a confluence of political and market forces. In November 2024, Donald Trump Jr. joined Unusual Machines as an adviser, taking a $4 million stake in the business. Since then, the Trump administration has aggressively promoted domestic drone manufacturing, launching a $1.4 billion funding initiative and issuing executive orders to expedite Pentagon procurement. On June 6, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14307, titled “Unleashing American Drone Dominance,” which directed federal agencies to prioritize American-made drones and accelerate their acquisition for both military and commercial use. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed up with a July 10 memo that stripped away bureaucratic barriers, allowing field commanders to procure small drones directly and reclassifying them as “consumable” supplies.
Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll underscored the military’s new priorities in early October, stating, “The Army will equip soldiers with these kinds of expendable drones that deliver devastating effects at a massive discount.” Driscoll outlined plans for elite units, such as the Ranger Regiment and Delta Force, to operate with embedded software engineers and to purchase up to 10,000 small drones by September 2026—each costing less than $2,000. The Pentagon’s Blue UAS program, which certifies secure, domestically produced drones for military use, has further increased the pressure to develop robust American alternatives to Chinese products, especially with a looming December 23, 2025, deadline for a national security review of Chinese drone makers DJI and Autel.
Unusual Machines’ contract with the Army, described by CEO Allan Evans as the company’s “largest-ever U.S. government order,” covers 3,500 motors and additional components, with the prospect of much larger orders on the horizon. Evans declined to disclose the contract’s value, but the company previously landed a $12.8 million agreement with Strategic Logix in September to supply over 160,000 drone parts for the military’s Rapid Reconfigurable Systems Line. In August, Unusual Machines secured a $1.6 million deal with another domestic defense drone maker, and in February, it partnered with Red Cat Holdings to provide NDAA-compliant motors for their platforms. The company has also acquired Australia’s Rotor Lab for $7 million, adding high-performance motor designs to its portfolio, and joined an $8 million investment in LightPath Technologies, a maker of infrared optics for drone cameras.
Despite these high-profile wins, Unusual Machines faces considerable operational and financial challenges. The company reported a $3.3 million operating loss in the first quarter of 2025, largely due to tariffs that raised the cost of components previously sourced from China. The shift to domestic manufacturing—while a boon for national security—has squeezed margins and forced the company to invest heavily in new facilities. Unusual Machines is currently building a 17,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Orlando, Florida, with motor production slated to begin later this year. The company owns popular FPV drone brands Fat Shark and Rotor Riot, reflecting its strategy to pivot from consumer sales to defense contracting.
Wall Street analysts have taken notice, rating Unusual Machines a “Strong Buy” with an average 12-month price target of $19.33—a roughly 50% upside from current levels. The military drone market itself is projected to grow from $15.8 billion in 2025 to $22.8 billion by 2030, according to industry estimates. Unusual Machines’ Q2 revenue jumped 50.5% year-over-year, beating analyst forecasts by about 17%. The company now sports a market capitalization of around $400 million, with a 52-week high near $23 per share. Notably, the company pays no dividend, instead focusing all resources on growth and capacity expansion.
Yet, the company’s rapid ascent hasn’t escaped scrutiny. Ethics watchdogs and some industry observers have raised concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest, given Trump Jr.’s $4 million stake and advisory role coinciding with the company’s federal contract wins. Both company officials and a Trump Jr. spokesperson have emphasized that he “has never communicated with anyone in the administration on behalf of Unusual Machines or about the contract in question,” and that “his advisory role with them has nothing to do with interfacing with the government.” Still, as DroneXL pointed out, “It’s impossible to disentangle legitimate business success from the appearance of political favoritism when the president’s son holds millions in a company winning contracts from his father’s Pentagon.”
Unusual Machines is not alone in the booming field of domestic drone manufacturing. Competitors like Red Cat Holdings and Skydio are also vying for lucrative Pentagon contracts. Red Cat unseated Skydio in late 2024 to win the Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance Program of Record, a five-year deal potentially worth up to $260 million. Skydio, meanwhile, continues to produce over 1,000 drones a month at its California facility and maintains contracts with multiple branches of the U.S. military. The Pentagon’s push for American-made drones, coupled with the exclusion of Chinese competitors like DJI, has created a fiercely competitive market with high stakes for both national security and industrial policy.
Looking ahead, Unusual Machines expects the U.S. military to order an additional 20,000 components in 2026, which could further transform the company’s standing in the defense sector. However, the challenges of scaling up production, controlling costs, and meeting the Pentagon’s strict requirements remain significant. As DroneXL observed, the real test will be whether Unusual Machines can “actually deliver on this contract while scaling production and controlling costs.” The company’s success—or failure—will serve as a bellwether for the broader effort to reshore critical defense manufacturing and reduce America’s reliance on foreign technology. For now, Unusual Machines’ dramatic rise is a vivid illustration of how politics, policy, and business can collide in unexpected ways.
