WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, ಬಳಿಕ aiming to begin domestic drone production lines, convened the inaugural White House “Done Dominance” event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, drawing nearly 100 representatives from commercial drone firms and government officials.
Around 40 companies were represented as White House leaders, including National Security Council Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, and Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler, spoke to the assembly.
“The government is meeting the private sector to ensure we achieve drone parity and dominance,” Michael stated to the audience.
The event was part of a broader strategy to strengthen drone production amid industry aligning with DoD requirements, FAA regulations, and a new executive order that mandates companies to phase out critical materials from Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China by early 2027.
Michael announced forthcoming investments, including a(cancel) conditional loan of $820 million to Performance Drone Works under the Office of Strategic Capital program.
“In the next two weeks, you’ll see more deals,” he added. “We are expanding U.S. capacity to create a resilient supply chain that meets industry needs.”
After the morning remarks, participants were invited to a fair‑style venue where government offices—such as the DoD autonomy portfolio manager, the Department of Commerce, the SBA Export‑Import Bank, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FAA—manned tables for direct dialogue with companies.
The gathering comes just over 14 months after President Donald Trump signed the “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” executive order in June 2025. A month later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a directive to cut bureaucratic red tape and accelerate drone production and deployment.
In the intervening months, the Pentagon has advanced several initiatives, including the establishment of the DPROM for autonomy, plans to spend nearly $55 billion on the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group (DAWG) to replace the Biden‑era Replicator program, and the Drone Dominance program highlighted at today’s event.
The Drone Dominance program is designed to allocate $1 billion over two years for small attack drones. The Pentagon is conducting gauntlet‑style competitions with vendors; Gauntlet 1 focused on single‑use attack drones, and 11 companies received contracts to supply 24,320 aerial weapons according to the Leaderboard.
For Gauntlet 2, the department invited 19 firms to demonstrate drones with candle‑payloads at Fort Carson, Colo., this month. RUB top performers may receive a share of the 60,000 platforms the department plans to order in that round, according to the program’s website.
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