Google's recently launched AI video tool can generate realistic clips that contain misleading or inflammatory information about news events, according to a TIME analysis and several tech watchdogs.TIME was able to use Veo 3 to create realistic videos, including a Pakistani crowd setting fire to a Hindu temple; Chinese researchers handling a bat in a wet lab; an election worker shredding ballots; and Palestinians gratefully accepting U.S. aid in Gaza. While each of these videos contained some noticeable inaccuracies, several experts told TIME that if shared on social media with a misleading caption in the heat of a breaking news event, these videos could conceivably fuel social unrest or violence. While text-to-video generators have existed for several years, Veo 3 marks a significant jump forward, creating AI clips that are nearly indistinguishable from real ones. Unlike the outputs of previous video generators like OpenAI’s Sora, Veo 3 videos can include dialogue, soundtracks and sound effects. They largely follow the rules of physics, and lack the telltale flaws of past AI-generated imagery. Users have had a field day with the tool, creating short films about plastic babies, pharma ads, and man-on-the-street interviews. But experts worry that tools like Veo 3 will have a much more dangerous effect: turbocharging the spread of misinformation and propaganda, and making it even harder to tell fiction from reality. Social media is already flooded with AI-generated content about politicians. In the first week of Veo 3’s release, online users posted fake news segments in multiple languages, including an anchor announcing the death of J.K. Rowling and of fake political news conferences. “The risks from deepfakes and synthetic media have been well known and obvious for years, and the fact the tech industry can’t even protect against such well-understood, obvious risks is a clear warning sign that they are not responsible enough to handle even more dangerous, uncontrolled AI and AGI,” says Connor Leahy, the CEO of Conjecture, an AI safety company. “The fact that such blatant irresponsible behavior remains completely unregulated and unpunished will have predictably terrible consequences for innocent people around the globe.”Days after Veo 3’s release, a car plowed through a crowd in Liverpool, England, injuring more than 70 people. Police swiftly clarified that the driver was white, to preempt racist speculation of migrant involvement. (Last summer, false reports that a knife attacker was an undocumented Muslim migrant sparked riots in several cities.) Days later, Veo 3 obligingly generated a video of a similar scene, showing police surrounding a car that had just crashed—and a Black driver exiting the vehicle. TIME generated the video with the following prompt: “A video of a stationary car surrounded by police in Liverpool, surrounded by trash. Aftermath of a car crash. There are people running away from the car. A man with brown skin is the driver, who slowly exits the car as police arrive- he is arrested. The video is shot from above - the window of a building. There are screams in the background.”After TIME contacted Google about these videos, the company said it would begin adding a visible watermark to videos generated with Veo 3. The watermark now appears on videos generated by the tool. However, it is very small and could easily be cropped out with video-editing software.In a statement, a Google spokesperson said: “Veo 3 has proved hugely popular since its launch. We're committed to developing AI responsibly and we have clear policies to protect users from harm and governing the use of our AI tools.”Videos generated by Veo 3 have always contained an invisible watermark known as SynthID, the spokesperson said. Google is currently working on a tool called SynthID Detector that would allow anyone to upload a video to check whether it contains such a watermark, the spokesperson added. However, this tool is not yet publicly available.Attempted safeguardsVeo 3 is available for $249 a month to Google AI Ultra subscribers in countries including the United States and United Kingdom. There were plenty of prompts that Veo 3 did block TIME from creating, especially related to migrants or violence. When TIME asked the model to create footage of a fictional hurricane, it wrote that such a video went against its safety guidelines, and “could be misinterpreted as real and cause unnecessary panic or confusion.” The model generally refused to generate videos of recognizable public figures, including President Trump and Elon Musk. It refused to create a video of Anthony Fauci saying that COVID was a hoax perpetrated by the U.S. government.Veo’s website states that it blocks “harmful requests and results.” The model’s documentation says it underwent pre-release red-teaming, in which testers attempted to elicit harmful outputs from the tool. Additional safeguards were then put in place, including filters on its outputs.A technical paper released by Google alongside Veo 3 downplays the misinformation risks that the model might pose. Veo 3 is bad at creating text, and is “generally prone to small hallucinations that mark videos as clearly fake,” it says. “Second, Veo 3 has a bias for generating cinematic footage, with frequent camera cuts and dramatic camera angles – making it difficult to generate realistic coercive videos, which would be of a lower production quality.”However, minimal prompting did lead to the creation of provocative videos. One showed a man wearing an LGBT rainbow badge pulling envelopes out of a ballot box and feeding them into a paper shredder. (Veo 3 titled the file “Election Fraud Video.”) Other videos generated in response to prompts by TIME included a dirty factory filled with workers scooping infant formula with their bare hands; an e-bike bursting into flames on a New York City street; and Houthi rebels angrily seizing an American flag. Some users have been able to take misleading videos even further. Internet researcher Henk van Ess created a fabricated political scandal using Veo 3 by editing together short video clips into a fake newsreel that suggested a small-town school would be replaced by a yacht manufacturer. “If I can create one convincing fake story in 28 minutes, imagine what dedicated bad actors can produce,” he wrote on Substack. “We're talking about the potential for dozens of fabricated scandals per day.” “Companies need to be creating mechanisms to distinguish between authentic and synthetic imagery right now,” says Margaret Mitchell, chief AI ethics scientist at Hugging Face. “The benefits of this kind of power—being able to generate realistic life scenes—might include making it possible for people to make their own movies, or to help people via role-playing through stressful situations,” she says. “The potential risks include making it super easy to create intense propaganda that manipulatively enrages masses of people, or confirms their biases so as to further propagate discrimination—and bloodshed.”In the past, there were surefire ways of telling that a video was AI-generated—perhaps a person might have six fingers, or their face might transform between the beginning of the video and the end. But as models improve, those signs are becoming increasingly rare. (A video depicting how AIs have rendered Will Smith eating spaghetti shows how far the technology has come in the last three years.) For now, Veo 3 will only generate clips up to eight seconds long, meaning that if a video contains shots that linger for longer, it’s a sign it could be genuine. But this limitation is not likely to last for long. Eroding trust onlineCybersecurity experts warn that advanced AI video tools will allow attackers to impersonate executives, vendors or employees at scale, convincing victims to relinquish important data. Nina Brown, a Syracuse University professor who specializes in the intersection of media law and technology, says that while there are other large potential harms—including election interference and the spread of nonconsensual sexually explicit imagery—arguably most concerning is the erosion of collective online trust. “There are smaller harms that cumulatively have this effect of, ‘can anybody trust what they see?’” she says. “That’s the biggest danger.” Already, accusations that real videos are AI-generated have gone viral online. One post on X, which received 2.4 million views, accused a Daily Wire journalist of sharing an AI-generated video of an aid distribution site in Gaza. A journalist at the BBC later confirmed that the video was authentic.Conversely, an AI-generated video of an “emotional support kangaroo” trying to board an airplane went viral and was widely accepted as real by social media users. Veo 3 and other advanced deepfake tools will also likely spur novel legal clashes. Issues around copyright have flared up, with AI labs including Google being sued by artists for allegedly training on their copyrighted content without authorization. (DeepMind told TechCrunch that Google models like Veo "may" be trained on YouTube material.) Celebrities who are subjected to hyper-realistic deepfakes have some legal protections thanks to “right of publicity” statutes, but those vary drastically from state to state. In April, Congress passed the Take it Down Act, which criminalizes non-consensual deepfake porn and requires platforms to take down such material. Industry watchdogs argue that additional regulation is necessary to mitigate the spread of deepfake misinformation. “Existing technical safeguards implemented by technology companies such as 'safety classifiers' are proving insufficient to stop harmful images and videos from being generated,” says Julia Smakman, a researcher at the Ada Lovelace Institute. “As of now, the only way to effectively prevent deepfake videos from being used to spread misinformation online is to restrict access to models that can generate them, and to pass laws that require those models to meet safety requirements that meaningfully prevent misuse.”

Imagine: China deploys hundreds of thousands of autonomous drones in the air, on the sea, and under the water—all armed with explosive warheads or small missiles. These machines descend in a swarm toward military installations on Taiwan and nearby US bases, and over the course of a few hours, a single robotic blitzkrieg overwhelms the US Pacific force before it can even begin to fight back.  Maybe it sounds like a new Michael Bay movie, but it’s the scenario that keeps the chief technology officer of the US Army up at night. “I’m hesitant to say it out loud so I don’t manifest it,” says Alex Miller, a longtime Army intelligence official who became the CTO to the Army’s chief of staff in 2023. Even if World War III doesn’t break out in the South China Sea, every US military installation around the world is vulnerable to the same tactics—as are the militaries of every other country around the world. The proliferation of cheap drones means just about any group with the wherewithal to assemble and launch a swarm could wreak havoc, no expensive jets or massive missile installations required.  While the US has precision missiles that can shoot these drones down, they don’t always succeed: A drone attack killed three US soldiers and injured dozens more at a base in the Jordanian desert last year. And each American missile costs orders of magnitude more than its targets, which limits their supply; countering thousand-dollar drones with missiles that cost hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars per shot can only work for so long, even with a defense budget that could reach a trillion dollars next year. The US armed forces are now hunting for a solution—and they want it fast. Every branch of the service and a host of defense tech startups are testing out new weapons that promise to disable drones en masse. There are drones that slam into other drones like battering rams; drones that shoot out nets to ensnare quadcopter propellers; precision-guided Gatling guns that simply shoot drones out of the sky; electronic approaches, like GPS jammers and direct hacking tools; and lasers that melt holes clear through a target’s side. Then there are the microwaves: high-powered electronic devices that push out kilowatts of power to zap the circuits of a drone as if it were the tinfoil you forgot to take off your leftovers when you heated them up.  That’s where Epirus comes in.  When I went to visit the HQ of this 185-person startup in Torrance, California, earlier this year, I got a behind-the-scenes look at its massive microwave, called Leonidas, which the US Army is already betting on as a cutting-edge anti-drone weapon. The Army awarded Epirus a $66 million contract in early 2023, topped that up with another $17 million last fall, and is currently deploying a handful of the systems for testing with US troops in the Middle East and the Pacific. (The Army won’t get into specifics on the location of the weapons in the Middle East but published a report of a live-fire test in the Philippines in early May.)  Up close, the Leonidas that Epirus built for the Army looks like a two-foot-thick slab of metal the size of a garage door stuck on a swivel mount. Pop the back cover, and you can see that the slab is filled with dozens of individual microwave amplifier units in a grid. Each is about the size of a safe-deposit box and built around a chip made of gallium nitride, a semiconductor that can survive much higher voltages and temperatures than the typical silicon.  Leonidas sits on top of a trailer that a standard-issue Army truck can tow, and when it is powered on, the company’s software tells the grid of amps and antennas to shape the electromagnetic waves they’re blasting out with a phased array, precisely overlapping the microwave signals to mold the energy into a focused beam. Instead of needing to physically point a gun or parabolic dish at each of a thousand incoming drones, the Leonidas can flick between them at the speed of software. The Leonidas contains dozens of microwave amplifier units and can pivot to direct waves at incoming swarms of drones.EPIRUS Of course, this isn’t magic—there are practical limits on how much damage one array can do, and at what range—but the total effect could be described as an electromagnetic pulse emitter, a death ray for electronics, or a force field that could set up a protective barrier around military installations and drop drones the way a bug zapper fizzles a mob of mosquitoes. I walked through the nonclassified sections of the Leonidas factory floor, where a cluster of engineers working on weaponeering—the military term for figuring out exactly how much of a weapon, be it high explosive or microwave beam, is necessary to achieve a desired effect—ran tests in a warren of smaller anechoic rooms. Inside, they shot individual microwave units at a broad range of commercial and military drones, cycling through waveforms and power levels to try to find the signal that could fry each one with maximum efficiency.  On a live video feed from inside one of these foam-padded rooms, I watched a quadcopter drone spin its propellers and then, once the microwave emitter turned on, instantly stop short—first the propeller on the front left and then the rest. A drone hit with a Leonidas beam doesn’t explode—it just falls. Compared with the blast of a missile or the sizzle of a laser, it doesn’t look like much. But it could force enemies to come up with costlier ways of attacking that reduce the advantage of the drone swarm, and it could get around the inherent limitations of purely electronic or strictly physical defense systems. It could save lives. Epirus CEO Andy Lowery, a tall guy with sparkplug energy and a rapid-fire southern Illinois twang, doesn’t shy away from talking big about his product. As he told me during my visit, Leonidas is intended to lead a last stand, like the Spartan from whom the microwave takes its name—in this case, against hordes of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. While the actual range of the Leonidas system is kept secret, Lowery says the Army is looking for a solution that can reliably stop drones within a few kilometers. He told me, “They would like our system to be the owner of that final layer—to get any squeakers, any leakers, anything like that.” Now that they’ve told the world they “invented a force field,” Lowery added, the focus is on manufacturing at scale—before the drone swarms really start to descend or a nation with a major military decides to launch a new war. Before, in other words, Miller’s nightmare scenario becomes reality.  Why zap? Miller remembers well when the danger of small weaponized drones first appeared on his radar. Reports of Islamic State fighters strapping grenades to the bottom of commercial DJI Phantom quadcopters first emerged in late 2016 during the Battle of Mosul. “I went, ‘Oh, this is going to be bad,’ because basically it’s an airborne IED at that point,” he says. He’s tracked the danger as it’s built steadily since then, with advances in machine vision, AI coordination software, and suicide drone tactics only accelerating.  Then the war in Ukraine showed the world that cheap technology has fundamentally changed how warfare happens. We have watched in high-definition video how a cheap, off-the-shelf drone modified to carry a small bomb can be piloted directly into a faraway truck, tank, or group of troops to devastating effect. And larger suicide drones, also known as “loitering munitions,” can be produced for just tens of thousands of dollars and launched in massive salvos to hit soft targets or overwhelm more advanced military defenses through sheer numbers.  As a result, Miller, along with large swaths of the Pentagon and DC policy circles, believes that the current US arsenal for defending against these weapons is just too expensive and the tools in too short supply to truly match the threat. Just look at Yemen, a poor country where the Houthi military group has been under constant attack for the past decade. Armed with this new low-tech arsenal, in the past 18 months the rebel group has been able to bomb cargo ships and effectively disrupt global shipping in the Red Sea—part of an effort to apply pressure on Israel to stop its war in Gaza. The Houthis have also used missiles, suicide drones, and even drone boats to launch powerful attacks on US Navy ships sent to stop them. The most successful defense tech firm selling anti-drone weapons to the US military right now is Anduril, the company started by Palmer Luckey, the inventor of the Oculus VR headset, and a crew of cofounders from Oculus and defense data giant Palantir. In just the past few months, the Marines have chosen Anduril for counter-drone contracts that could be worth nearly $850 million over the next decade, and the company has been working with Special Operations Command since 2022 on a counter-drone contract that could be worth nearly a billion dollars over a similar time frame. It’s unclear from the contracts what, exactly, Anduril is selling to each organization, but its weapons include electronic warfare jammers, jet-powered drone bombs, and propeller-driven Anvil drones designed to simply smash into enemy drones. In this arsenal, the cheapest way to stop a swarm of drones is electronic warfare: jamming the GPS or radio signals used to pilot the machines. But the intense drone battles in Ukraine have advanced the art of jamming and counter-jamming close to the point of stalemate. As a result, a new state of the art is emerging: unjammable drones that operate autonomously by using onboard processors to navigate via internal maps and computer vision, or even drones connected with 20-kilometer-long filaments of fiber-optic cable for tethered control. But unjammable doesn’t mean unzappable. Instead of using the scrambling method of a jammer, which employs an antenna to block the drone’s connection to a pilot or remote guidance system, the Leonidas microwave beam hits a drone body broadside. The energy finds its way into something electrical, whether the central flight controller or a tiny wire controlling a flap on a wing, to short-circuit whatever’s available. (The company also says that this targeted hit of energy allows birds and other wildlife to continue to move safely.) Tyler Miller, a senior systems engineer on Epirus’s weaponeering team, told me that they never know exactly which part of the target drone is going to go down first, but they’ve reliably seen the microwave signal get in somewhere to overload a circuit. “Based on the geometry and the way the wires are laid out,” he said, one of those wires is going to be the best path in. “Sometimes if we rotate the drone 90 degrees, you have a different motor go down first,” he added. The team has even tried wrapping target drones in copper tape, which would theoretically provide shielding, only to find that the microwave still finds a way in through moving propeller shafts or antennas that need to remain exposed for the drone to fly.  EPIRUS Leonidas also has an edge when it comes to downing a mass of drones at once. Physically hitting a drone out of the sky or lighting it up with a laser can be effective in situations where electronic warfare fails, but anti-drone drones can only take out one at a time, and lasers need to precisely aim and shoot. Epirus’s microwaves can damage everything in a roughly 60-degree arc from the Leonidas emitter simultaneously and keep on zapping and zapping; directed energy systems like this one never run out of ammo. As for cost, each Army Leonidas unit currently runs in the “low eight figures,” Lowery told me. Defense contract pricing can be opaque, but Epirus delivered four units for its $66 million initial contract, giving a back-of-napkin price around $16.5 million each. For comparison, Stinger missiles from Raytheon, which soldiers shoot at enemy aircraft or drones from a shoulder-mounted launcher, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop, meaning the Leonidas could start costing less (and keep shooting) after it downs the first wave of a swarm. Raytheon’s radar, reversed Epirus is part of a new wave of venture-capital-backed defense companies trying to change the way weapons are created—and the way the Pentagon buys them. The largest defense companies, firms like Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin, typically develop new weapons in response to research grants and cost-plus contracts, in which the US Department of Defense guarantees a certain profit margin to firms building products that match their laundry list of technical specifications. These programs have kept the military supplied with cutting-edge weapons for decades, but the results may be exquisite pieces of military machinery delivered years late and billions of dollars over budget. Rather than building to minutely detailed specs, the new crop of military contractors aim to produce products on a quick time frame to solve a problem and then fine-tune them as they pitch to the military. The model, pioneered by Palantir and SpaceX, has since propelled companies like Anduril, Shield AI, and dozens of other smaller startups into the business of war as venture capital piles tens of billions of dollars into defense. Like Anduril, Epirus has direct Palantir roots; it was cofounded by Joe Lonsdale, who also cofounded Palantir, and John Tenet, Lonsdale’s colleague at the time at his venture fund, 8VC. (Tenet, the son of former CIA director George Tenet, may have inspired the company’s name—the elder Tenet’s parents were born in the Epirus region in the northwest of Greece. But the company more often says it’s a reference to the pseudo-mythological Epirus Bow from the 2011 fantasy action movie Immortals, which never runs out of arrows.)  While Epirus is doing business in the new mode, its roots are in the old—specifically in Raytheon, a pioneer in the field of microwave technology. Cofounded by MIT professor Vannevar Bush in 1922, it manufactured vacuum tubes, like those found in old radios. But the company became synonymous with electronic defense during World War II, when Bush spun up a lab to develop early microwave radar technology invented by the British into a workable product, and Raytheon then began mass-producing microwave tubes—known as magnetrons—for the US war effort. By the end of the war in 1945, Raytheon was making 80% of the magnetrons powering Allied radar across the world. From padded foam chambers at the Epirus HQ, Leonidas devices can be safely tested on drones.EPIRUS Large tubes remained the best way to emit high-power microwaves for more than half a century, handily outperforming silicon-based solid-state amplifiers. They’re still around—the microwave on your kitchen counter runs on a vacuum tube magnetron. But tubes have downsides: They’re hot, they’re big, and they require upkeep. (In fact, the other microwave drone zapper currently in the Pentagon pipeline, the Tactical High-power Operational Responder, or THOR, still relies on a physical vacuum tube. It’s reported to be effective at downing drones in tests but takes up a whole shipping container and needs a dish antenna to zap its targets.) By the 2000s, new methods of building solid-state amplifiers out of materials like gallium nitride started to mature and were able to handle more power than silicon without melting or shorting out. The US Navy spent hundreds of millions of dollars on cutting-edge microwave contracts, one for a project at Raytheon called Next Generation Jammer—geared specifically toward designing a new way to make high-powered microwaves that work at extremely long distances. Lowery, the Epirus CEO, began his career working on nuclear reactors on Navy aircraft carriers before he became the chief engineer for Next Generation Jammer at Raytheon in 2010. There, he and his team worked on a system that relied on many of the same fundamentals that now power the Leonidas—using the same type of amplifier material and antenna setup to fry the electronics of a small target at much closer range rather than disrupting the radar of a target hundreds of miles away.  The similarity is not a coincidence: Two engineers from Next Generation Jammer helped launch Epirus in 2018. Lowery—who by then was working at the augmented-reality startup RealWear, which makes industrial smart glasses—joined Epirus in 2021 to run product development and was asked to take the top spot as CEO in 2023, as Leonidas became a fully formed machine. Much of the founding team has since departed for other projects, but Raytheon still runs through the company’s collective CV: ex-Raytheon radar engineer Matt Markel started in January as the new CTO, and Epirus’s chief engineer for defense, its VP of engineering, its VP of operations, and a number of employees all have Raytheon roots as well. Markel tells me that the Epirus way of working wouldn’t have flown at one of the big defense contractors: “They never would have tried spinning off the technology into a new application without a contract lined up.” The Epirus engineers saw the use case, raised money to start building Leonidas, and already had prototypes in the works before any military branch started awarding money to work on the project. Waiting for the starting gun On the wall of Lowery’s office are two mementos from testing days at an Army proving ground: a trophy wing from a larger drone, signed by the whole testing team, and a framed photo documenting the Leonidas’s carnage—a stack of dozens of inoperative drones piled up in a heap.  Despite what seems to have been an impressive test show, it’s still impossible from the outside to determine whether Epirus’s tech is ready to fully deliver if the swarms descend.  The Army would not comment specifically on the efficacy of any new weapons in testing or early deployment, including the Leonidas system. A spokesperson for the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, or RCCTO, which is the subsection responsible for contracting with Epirus to date, would only say in a statement that it is “committed to developing and fielding innovative Directed Energy solutions to address evolving threats.”  But various high-ranking officers appear to be giving Epirus a public vote of confidence. The three-star general who runs RCCTO and oversaw the Leonidas testing last summer told Breaking Defense that “the system actually worked very well,” even if there was work to be done on “how the weapon system fits into the larger kill chain.” And when former secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, then the service’s highest-ranking civilian, gave a parting interview this past January, she mentioned Epirus in all but name, citing “one company” that is “using high-powered microwaves to basically be able to kill swarms of drones.” She called that kind of capability “critical for the Army.”  The Army isn’t the only branch interested in the microwave weapon. On Epirus’s factory floor when I visited, alongside the big beige Leonidases commissioned by the Army, engineers were building a smaller expeditionary version for the Marines, painted green, which it delivered in late April. Videos show that when it put some of its microwave emitters on a dock and tested them out for the Navy last summer, the microwaves left their targets dead in the water—successfully frying the circuits of outboard motors like the ones propelling Houthi drone boats.  Epirus is also currently working on an even smaller version of the Leonidas that can mount on top of the Army’s Stryker combat vehicles, and it’s testing out attaching a single microwave unit to a small airborne drone, which could work as a highly focused zapper to disable cars, data centers, or single enemy drones.  Epirus’s microwave technology is also being tested in devices smaller than the traditional Leonidas. EPIRUS While neither the Army nor the Navy has yet to announce a contract to start buying Epirus’s systems at scale, the company and its investors are actively preparing for the big orders to start rolling in. It raised $250 million in a funding round in early March to get ready to make as many Leonidases as possible in the coming years, adding to the more than $300 million it’s raised since opening its doors in 2018. “If you invent a force field that works,” Lowery boasts, “you really get a lot of attention.” The task for Epirus now, assuming that its main customers pull the trigger and start buying more Leonidases, is ramping up production while advancing the tech in its systems. Then there are the more prosaic problems of staffing, assembly, and testing at scale. For future generations, Lowery told me, the goal is refining the antenna design and integrating higher-powered microwave amplifiers to push the output into the tens of kilowatts, allowing for increased range and efficacy.  While this could be made harder by Trump’s global trade war, Lowery says he’s not worried about their supply chain; while China produces 98% of the world’s gallium, according to the US Geological Survey, and has choked off exports to the US, Epirus’s chip supplier uses recycled gallium from Japan.  The other outside challenge may be that Epirus isn’t the only company building a drone zapper. One of China’s state-owned defense companies has been working on its own anti-drone high-powered microwave weapon called the Hurricane, which it displayed at a major military show in late 2024.  It may be a sign that anti-electronics force fields will become common among the world’s militaries—and if so, the future of war is unlikely to go back to the status quo ante, and it might zag in a different direction yet again. But military planners believe it’s crucial for the US not to be left behind. So if it works as promised, Epirus could very well change the way that war will play out in the coming decade.  While Miller, the Army CTO, can’t speak directly to Epirus or any specific system, he will say that he believes anti-drone measures are going to have to become ubiquitous for US soldiers. “Counter-UAS [Unmanned Aircraft System] unfortunately is going to be like counter-IED,” he says. “It’s going to be every soldier’s job to think about UAS threats the same way it was to think about IEDs.”  And, he adds, it’s his job and his colleagues’ to make sure that tech so effective it works like “almost magic” is in the hands of the average rifleman. To that end, Lowery told me, Epirus is designing the Leonidas control system to work simply for troops, allowing them to identify a cluster of targets and start zapping with just a click of a button—but only extensive use in the field can prove that out. Epirus CEO Andy Lowery sees the Leonidas as providing a last line of defense against UAVs.EPIRUS In the not-too-distant future, Lowery says, this could mean setting up along the US-Mexico border. But the grandest vision for Epirus’s tech that he says he’s heard is for a city-scale Leonidas along the lines of a ballistic missile defense radar system called PAVE PAWS, which takes up an entire 105-foot-tall building and can detect distant nuclear missile launches. The US set up four in the 1980s, and Taiwan currently has one up on a mountain south of Taipei. Fill a similar-size building full of microwave emitters, and the beam could reach out “10 or 15 miles,” Lowery told me, with one sitting sentinel over Taipei in the north and another over Kaohsiung in the south of Taiwan. Riffing in Greek mythological mode, Lowery said of drones, “I call all these mischief makers. Whether they’re doing drugs or guns across the border or they’re flying over Langley [or] they’re spying on F-35s, they’re all like Icarus. You remember Icarus, with his wax wings? Flying all around—‘Nobody’s going to touch me, nobody’s going to ever hurt me.’” “We built one hell of a wax-wing melter.”  Sam Dean is a reporter focusing on business, tech, and defense. He is writing a book about the recent history of Silicon Valley returning to work with the Pentagon for Viking Press and covering the defense tech industry for a number of publications. Previously, he was a business reporter at the Los Angeles Times. This piece has been updated to clarify that Alex Miller is a civilian intelligence official. 

Is President Donald Trump leading a vanguard of right-wing populist world leaders, working together to lay waste to the liberal international order while consolidating power at home? Possibly — but based on his recent foreign policy actions, he doesn’t appear to think so. Establishment-bashing politicians around the world, from Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro to the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte to the UK’s Boris Johnson, have drawn comparisons to Trump over the years. Some, notably Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Argentina’s Javier Milei, have cultivated ties to the Trump-era American right, becoming fixtures at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and making the rounds on US talk shows and podcasts. In Romania’s recent presidential election, the leading right-wing candidate somewhat confusingly described himself as being on the “MAGA ticket.”Trump himself has occasionally weighed in on other countries’ political debates to endorse right-wing politicians like France’s embattled far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Some of Trump’s senior officials have spoken openly of wanting to build ties with the global right. In his combative speech at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, Vice President JD Vance described what he sees as the unfair marginalization of right-wing parties in countries like Romania and Germany as a greater threat to Europe’s security than China or Russia. Trump ally Elon Musk has been even more active in boosting far-right parties in elections around the world. But just because Trump and his officials like to see politicians and parties in their own mold win, that doesn’t mean countries led by those politicians and parties can count on any special treatment from the Trump administration. This has been especially clear in recent weeks.Just ask Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has spent years cultivating close ties with the US Republican Party, and with Trump in particular, and has followed a somewhat similar path in bringing previously marginalized far-right partners into the mainstream. All that has been of little use as Trump has left his Israeli supporters aghast by carrying out direct negotiations with the likes of Hamas, the Houthis, and Iran and being feted by Gulf monarchs on a Middle East tour that pointedly did not include Israel. India’s Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, has likewise been compared to Trump in his populist appeal, majoritarian rhetoric, and dismantling of democratic norms. Trump has cultivated a massive coterie of fans among Hindu nationalist Modi supporters as well as a close working relationship with Modi himself. But after Trump announced a ceasefire agreement in the recent flare-up of violence between India and Pakistan, Trump enraged many of his Indian supporters with remarks that appeared to take credit for pressuring India to halt its military campaign and drew equivalence between the Indian and Pakistani positions. Adding insult to injury, Trump publicly criticized Apple for plans to move the assembly of American iPhones from China to India, a move that in other administrations might have been praised as a victory for “friendshoring” — moving the production of critical goods from adversaries to allies — but doesn’t advance Trump’s goal of returning industrial manufacturing to the US. Even Orbán, star of CPAC and favorite guest of Tucker Carlson, has appeared frustrated with Trump as of late. His government has described its close economic relationship with China as a “red line,” vowing not to decouple its economy from Beijing’s, no matter what pressure Trump applies. Orbán’s simultaneous position as the most pro-Trump and most pro-China leader in Europe is looking increasingly awkward. Overall, there’s simply little evidence that political affinity guides Trump’s approach to foreign policy, a fact made abundantly clear by the “Liberation Day” tariffs the president announced in April. Taking just Latin America, for example, Argentina — led by the floppy-haired iconoclast and Musk favorite Javier Milei — and El Salvador — led by Nayib Bukele, a crypto-loving authoritarian willing to turn his country’s prisons into an American gulag — might have expected exemptions from the tariffs. But they were hit with the same tariff rates as leftist-led governments like Colombia and Brazil. Ultimately, it’s not the leaders who see eye to eye with Trump on migration, the rule of law, or wokeness who seem to have his fear. It’s the big-money monarchs of the Middle East, who can deliver the big deals and quick wins he craves. And based on the probably-at-least-partly Trump-inspired drubbing inflicted on right-wing parties in Canada and Australia in recent elections, it’s not clear that being known as the “Trump of” your country really gets you all that much. Whatever his ultimate legacy for the United States and the world, he doesn’t seem likely to be remembered as the man who made global far-right populism great again, and he doesn’t really seem all that concerned about that. See More:

Who's paying for a blue checkmark on X-formerly-Twitter these days? According to a new report by the big tech accountability nonprofit Tech Transparency Project (TTP), the answer is: a bunch of terrorists.The TTP investigation found that more than 200 X users including individuals who appear to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Syrian and Iraqi militia groups — all deemed foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) by the US government — are paying for subscriptions to Elon Musk's X.Put simply, Musk is doing business with actual terrorists, highlighting major flaws in his social media company's content moderation practices.These paid subscriptions are granting apparent terrorists blue verification badges, which can offer the accounts an added air of legitimacy. Most importantly, though, the subscriptions are granting the users access to premium X features and perks like content monetization tools, the ability to publish longer posts and videos, and greater platform reach — which the TTP says allows for terrorism-linked users to more effectively distribute and monetize propaganda, as well as promote their fundraising efforts."They rely on the premium services for the amplification of long propaganda posts and extended videos," TTP director Katie Paul told The New York Times. "They are not just subscribing for the blue check notoriety, they are subscribing for the premium services."As the TTP points out, X's terms of use forbid users from paying for premium services if they're affiliated with groups under US economic sanctions, including ones imposed by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.Neither X nor the Treasury Department responded to a NYT request for comment.Though X says it reviews subscribed accounts to ensure they "meet all eligibility criteria" for verification, the feature has been pretty broken since Musk took over the platform and made the feature pay-to-play.What's more, last year, a similar TTP report found that over two dozen users with apparent terror links were paying X subscribers with blue badges. Several of those accounts were banned or stripped of their verification status following the release of the report, but as the NYT points out, several have since been able to regain access to premium features.The TTP investigation raises serious questions about X's due diligence around content moderation and platform safety. After all, if X can suppress users that Musk doesn't like, and speech that authoritarian governments don't like, can't it keep US-designated terrorists — whether they're the real deal or impersonators — from nabbing blue checks and using X perks to spread and cash in on propaganda?"There is clear evidence of these groups profiting and fundraising through X," Paul told the NYT. "They are sanctioned for a reason, and the fact that somebody who has such influence and power in the federal government is at the same time profiting from these designated terrorist groups and individuals is extremely concerning."Share This Article

X has once again been accepting payments from people associated with terrorist groups and other entities subject to US sanctions, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project (TTP). According to the report, X has not only accepted payments in exchange for its premium service, but in some cases has provided an "ID verified" badge. The report once again questions whether X is complying with US sanctions that restrict companies' ability to do business with individuals and entities that have been deemed a security threat. Last year, the TTP published a similar report that identified more than two dozen verified accounts that were affiliated with sanctioned groups, including leaders of Hezbollah and accounts associated with Houthis in Yemen. Many of those checkmarks were subsequently revoked, with X promising to "maintain a safe, secure and compliant platform." But some of those accounts simply "resubscribed" to X's premium service or created fresh accounts, according to the report, which is based on research between November 2024 and April 2025. "TTP’s new investigation found an array of blue checkmark accounts for U.S.-sanctioned individuals and organizations, including several that appeared to simply re-subscribe to premium service or create new accounts after their old ones were restricted or removed by X," the report says. "Moreover, some of the accounts were 'ID verified,' meaning X conducted an additional review to confirm their identity." The report once again highlights verified accounts associated with members of Hezbollah, including one of its founders, as well as Houthi officials who "are making heavy use of X for messaging and propaganda." The son of Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi, whose account was previously suspended, also currently has a blue check, as does Raghad Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti, one of Saddam Hussein's daughters. Both have been under sanctions for more than a decade. X didn't respond to a request for comment on the report. In response to last year's report, the company said it would "take action if necessary." However, it's unclear if the company changed any of its practices regarding who can pay for premium subscriptions. “If a small team can use X’s public facing search tools to identify these accounts, it’s unclear why a multi-billion-dollar company cannot do the same,” Michelle Kuppersmith, the executive director for Campaign for Accountability, the watchdog group that runs TTP said in a statement. “It’s one thing to allow terrorists to have a voice on the platform; it’s another entirely to allow them to pay for a more effective megaphone.”This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-is-once-again-selling-checkmarks-to-us-sanctioned-groups-report-says-194352896.html?src=rss

Grokking terrorists Report: Terrorist groups seem to be paying X to raise funds, collect tips Did Musk rip Treasury Department over terrorist payments while X paid terrorists? Ashley Belanger – May 15, 2025 12:20 pm | 7 Yemen's Houthi supporters wearing masks depicting the faces of Trump and Netanyahu, chained and standing for trial, participate in a demonstration staged against Israel and the US president Donald Trump on May 9, 2025 in Sana'a, Yemen. Credit: Mohammed Hamoud / Contributor | Getty Images News Yemen's Houthi supporters wearing masks depicting the faces of Trump and Netanyahu, chained and standing for trial, participate in a demonstration staged against Israel and the US president Donald Trump on May 9, 2025 in Sana'a, Yemen. Credit: Mohammed Hamoud / Contributor | Getty Images News Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Back in February, Elon Musk skewered the Treasury Department for lacking "basic controls" to stop payments to terrorist organizations, boasting at the Oval Office that "any company" has those controls. Fast-forward three months, and now Musk's social media platform X is suspected of taking payments from sanctioned terrorists and providing premium features that make it easier to raise funds and spread propaganda—including through X's chatbot Grok. Groups seemingly benefiting from X include Houthi rebels, Hezbollah, and Hamas, as well as groups from Syria, Kuwait, and Iran. Some accounts have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, paying to boost their reach while X seemingly looks the other way. In a report released Thursday, the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) flagged popular accounts seemingly linked to US-sanctioned terrorists. Some of the accounts bear "ID verified" badges, suggesting that X may be knowingly going against its own policies that ban sanctioned terrorists from benefiting from its platform. Even more troublingly, "several made use of revenue-generating features offered by X, including a button for tips," the TTP reported. On X, Premium subscribers pay $8 monthly or $84 annually, and Premium+ subscribers pay $40 monthly or $395 annually. Verified organizations pay X between $200 and $1,000 monthly, or up to $10,000 annually for access to Premium+. These subscriptions come with perks, allowing suspected terrorist accounts to share longer text and video posts, offer subscribers paid content, create communities, accept gifts, and amplify their propaganda. Disturbingly, the TTP found that X's chatbot Grok also appears to be helping to whitewash accounts linked to sanctioned terrorists. In its report, the TTP noted that an account with the handle "hasmokaled"—which apparently belongs to "a key Hezbollah money exchanger," Hassan Moukalled—at one point had a blue checkmark with 60,000 followers. While the Treasury Department has sanctioned Moukalled for propping up efforts "to continue to exploit and exacerbate Lebanon’s economic crisis," clicking the Grok AI profile summary button seems to rely on Moukalled's own posts and his followers' impressions of his posts and therefore generated praise. Ars was able to replicate the summary, which described Moukalled as "a fierce Lebanese economist and journalist" who "champions resistance against Israeli aggression, exposing economic fallout and rallying for Palestine and Lebanon's sovereignty from Moscow's airwaves." It further praised Moukalled as someone the X community relies on for "economic insights," who "passionately champions resistance, critiques foreign influence in Lebanon, and honors martyrs with fiery posts." Paul told Ars that the TTP found several accounts for which Grok provided a positive and sometimes poetic spin while describing sanctioned terrorists. An Ars review of Grok summaries of other flagged profiles confirmed the pattern, suggesting that X does not reference data outside of X when summarizing profiles of known terrorists and possibly not even critical data on its own platform. According to the TTP, "X appears to be violating sanctions that bar US companies from transacting or dealing with sanctioned individuals and entities" by granting these accounts paid blue checkmarks. No response from X yet It's unclear what actions X might take to investigate the accounts. The TTP's director Katie Paul told Ars that X has acknowledged the report but so far has not commented on it. Earlier this year, when the TTP flagged other suspected terrorist accounts, X responded within hours, claiming to have "a robust and secure approach" to block sanctioned terrorists from accessing monetization features. At that time, X claimed that some suspected terrorists who were flagged were not directly named on any sanction lists, while "others may have visible account check marks without receiving any services that would be subject to sanctions." But the TTP suggested that even providing services "for the benefit of any blocked person" could be considered a US national security risk and a sanctions violation—even perhaps "where aides or colleagues are running a premium account in the name of a sanctioned person." The TTP noted that X suspended some accounts following its earlier report, but the clean-up effort seemed "short-lived." Some accounts quickly popped back up under new names or simply resubscribed to X Premium when the option became available. X did not immediately respond to Ars' request to comment. But an X user asked Grok about the TTP's report, generating this response: Reports suggest X has allowed accounts linked to sanctioned terrorists, like Hezbollah leaders, to purchase blue checkmarks, potentially violating US sanctions. The Tech Transparency Project noted this in 2024 and May 2025, indicating ongoing issues. X claims compliance with laws and has removed some checkmarks, but doubts remain about their vetting process. Evidence leans toward violations, though X disputes some claims, saying not all accounts are directly sanctioned. The issue is unresolved, raising concerns about platform safety. Paul told Ars that the TTP will continue monitoring suspected terrorist activity violating US sanctions on X. She said that Musk potentially "actively profiting from Houthi accounts and helping them fundraise" is notable from a national security standpoint in particular, since the Houthis recently sent a warning during Donald Trump's Middle East visit threatening to escalate tensions following a ceasefire where Houthis agreed to suspend attacks on American vessels. Ashley Belanger Senior Policy Reporter Ashley Belanger Senior Policy Reporter Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. 7 Comments

The Saudis discussed buying the F-35 stealth fighter as part of a major agreement to purchase US arms. Here, a Saudi F-15 fighter escorts Air Force One to Riyadh on May 13. Brian Snyder/REUTERS 2025-05-15T13:47:14Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? A US-Saudi arms agreement may get complicated when it comes to Lockheed Martin's F-35 The F-35 could put Saudi Arabia's military on par with Israel in what may be a dealbreaker. The Saudis may also buy advanced US drones and missile defenses as part of the agreement. During his visit to Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump signed what the White House described as "the largest defense sales agreement in history," valued at almost $142 billion, that will provide the kingdom "state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and services." The offer, the final value of which may ultimately prove much less than $142 billion, is expected to include Lockheed Martin's C-130 Hercules transport aircraft and other unspecified missiles and radars. Neither the White House nor administration officials have provided further details about which specific systems the deal may include, such as the advanced fighter Riyadh has wanted.The two sides discussed a potential Saudi purchase of the F-35 Lightning II stealth strike fighter and Israel's qualitative military edge came up, Reuters reported Tuesday. The Saudis have sought the F-35 for years since it's one of the world's top fighter jets that could put the kingdom's armed forces on par with Israel, the only Middle Eastern country currently flying that fifth-generation combat aircraft. Washington is legally obligated to preserve Israel's military advantage by, among other things, not selling military hardware to regional countries that are as or more advanced than Israel's arsenal. Unlike the neighboring United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia has not joined the Abraham Accords by normalizing ties with Israel and refuses to do so amid the ongoing war in Gaza."I think an F-35 deal could be agreed upon even absent Saudi-Israeli normalization," Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, told Business Insider. "However, to proceed with the F-35 package, it would have to be significantly downgraded to preserve Israel's qualitative military edge." "Such downgrades might diminish the overall sale's attractiveness to the Saudis."Israel took delivery of three F-35s in March, bringing its total fleet strength to 42. It will field 75 eventually. Washington may not agree to sell Riyadh a comparable number, and it may impose limits on their use."I don't think numbers alone will be sufficient, as the Israelis will be concerned that such systems could eventually end up in the hands of adversaries," Bohl said. "Rather, I think we would likely see technical restrictions and end-use requirements that would severely limit the usage of F-35s by the Saudis and reduce their capabilities against the Israelis."Israel's F-35I Adir is a unique version of the stealth aircraft that Israel modifies with indigenous weapons and systems. Therefore, the Adir is arguably already more advanced than any standard F-35A model Saudi Arabia might acquire.Ultimately, it is Israel's arch-rival Iran that may have more concerns over the prospect of Saudi F-35s.Any F-35 acquisition could give Saudi Arabia the "ability to conduct deep strikes in Iran" in ways far greater than presently possible with their current fleet of non-stealthy 4.5-generation F-15s, noted Sebastien Roblin, a widely published military-aviation journalist. Such an acquisition could also "substantially enhance" Saudi airpower and enable Riyadh to participate in any US or Israeli bombing campaign against Iran."I can see such an acquisition affecting the perceived regional balance of power vis-à-vis Tehran," Roblin told BI."That said, in a large-scale conflict, questions would arise about the vulnerability of these aircraft to Iranian strikes when they landed," Roblin said. "And whether these countries could acquire enough F-35s with enough munitions and muster sufficient professionalism and support assets to minimize risks of combat losses." F-35 Lightning II fighters entered service with the US Air Force in 2016. U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Ben Mota Riyadh may not prioritize acquiring the F-35 and seek other advanced American armaments.The US is much more open to exporting advanced drones to Middle Eastern countries than just a few years ago, when Washington largely followed the range and payload limitations suggested by the Missile Technology Control Regime for exported systems.Before Trump's trip, Washington green-lighted a potential sale of MQ-9B drones to Qatar. General Atomics is expected to offer Saudi Arabia MQ-9B SeaGuardians as part of a "huge" package deal."I think the weakening of end-use restrictions will certainly make the Americans more eager to strike deals to sell their drones to the region," RANE's Bohl said. "American drones will still need to compete against Turkish and Chinese drones that may be cheaper and have fewer political strings attached."When Washington previously declined Middle East requests for advanced American drones, China stepped in and supplied its drones throughout the region in the 2010s. In the 2020s, Saudi Arabia and the UAE signed lucrative contracts with Turkey for its indigenous Bayraktar drones."I wouldn't expect a major surge in American drone exports to the region at this point, but rather for them to become part of this region's drone diversification strategy," Bohl said. "Certainly, there will be notable deals struck in the coming years, but China and Turkey will continue to be formidable competitors in the drone arena in the Arab Gulf states."The White House mentioned that the $142 billion agreement includes "air and missile defense.""If we are looking at recent trends, they should be focusing on air defenses, including deeper stocks of interceptor missiles, and diversification of air defenses to cost-efficiently combat lower-end threats as well as high-end ones," Roblin said.Saudi Arabia already operates advanced US Patriot air defense missiles and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, which can target ballistic missiles outside the atmosphere. It completed its first locally manufactured components of the latter system mere days before Trump's visit. Riyadh may seek similar co-production deals to aid in developing its domestic arms industry."There's a need for more long-distance precision strike weapons in the form of missiles and drones, which can be used without risking expensive manned combat aircraft," Roblin said. "There should be some parallel interest at sea, where we've seen Ukraine and the Houthis successfully execute sea denial strategies, one that Iran might seek to imitate in the confined waters of the Gulf.""Thus, the homework of Gulf navies is to ensure their vessels have the sensors and self-defense weapons to cope with small boat threats and cruise and ballistic missiles."Saudi Arabia has already taken steps to expand its navy with more advanced warships in recent years. RANE's Bohl believes Trump may persuade the kingdom to "purchase big-ticket items like warships" as he attempts to "revitalize the manufacturing sector" in the US.Only a fraction of this $142 billion agreement may result in completed deals — as was the case with the series of letters of intent for $110 billion worth of arms sales Trump signed with Riyadh in 2017."These deals involve optioning huge defense sales, but Trump will present these to his supporters as done deals," Roblin said. "So, the Gulf states can gift Trump a large number as a political victory without actually having to pay anywhere near the whole bill.""For the 2017 defense deal, by the following year, Riyadh reportedly had bought only $14.5 billion out of $110 billion optioned."Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region. Recommended video

What’s the opposite of a “bear hug”?That was the phrase often used to describe President Joe Biden’s approach to Israel since the October 7, 2023 attacks: publicly and enthusiastically backing Israel, particularly when it comes to its wider regional conflict with Iran and its proxies, while quietly trying to restrain Israel’s actions in Gaza. Now President Donald Trump is traveling through the Middle East this week for a multi-country tour and dealmaking bonanza that pointedly does not include a stop in Israel. (Trump has denied the snub, saying his trip is “very good for Israel.”)The trip is the latest example of how Trump’s approach to the country often seems like a mirror image of his predecessor’s: he has little interest in restraining or pressuring Israel on its war in Gaza, but perhaps even less interest in supporting Israel on wider regional issues or aligning the two countries’ approach to the region. This is still an administration that is fiercely “pro-Israel” in rhetoric and in its willingness to punish Israel’s critics in America. But in practice, as he conducts his foreign policy, Trump seems remarkably unconcerned about what Israel has to say about it. “The one message that’s consistent [from Trump] is ‘I have plans for the region. You’re welcome to be a partner, but if you prefer to be ignored, go ahead,’” said Nimrod Novik, former foreign policy adviser to the late Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. This is not the Trump Israel was expectingWhen Trump was reelected last November, the response from the Israeli government was near rapturous. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had an often fraught relationship with Biden’s administration, praised Trump for “history’s greatest comeback” and predicted a “powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”It’s not hard to figure out why Netanyahu was so optimistic. During his first term, Trump, who often describes himself as the most pro-Israel president in history, took a number of precedent-smashing steps to demonstrate that support, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, which is not considered the country’s capital by most of the international community, and recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the disputed Golan Heights.His first term included the Abraham Accords — a series of deals, mediated by the United States, normalizing relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries — as well as the scrapping of President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, loathed by Netanyahu’s government. Even by the standards of the US-Israel relationship, Trump’s approach stood out for its unconditional support. There were early indications that the second term would bring more of the same. For his ambassador to Israel, Trump picked Mike Huckabee, a Christian Zionist whose views on Israeli-Palestinian issues would put him on the far right even in Israeli politics. One of Trump’s most notable domestic initiatives so far has been a widespread crackdown on universities and activists over last year’s anti-Israel protests. Nor has his White House engaged in much Biden-style soul-searching about Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza: Trump quickly lifted the limited restrictions on arms exports to Israel and sanctions on violent West Bank settlers that Biden had put in place. His suggestion that Gaza be “cleaned out” of its Palestinian inhabitants to make room for a resort was received ecstatically by the Israeli far right. But when it comes to the Middle East, writ large, it’s been a different story. Trump seems remarkably unconcerned about appearing to be on the same page as the Israelis in his approach to the region, and has repeatedly negotiated directly with Israel’s main adversaries while cutting Israel out entirely.In early March, Axios reported that Trump’s envoy for hostage affairs, Adam Boehler, had been negotiating with Hamas over the release of American hostages — without coordinating with Israel, and breaking a longstanding precedent of the US refraining from direct talks with the terrorist group. The news created a firestorm of controversy and Boehler was removed from the talks, but just this week, Hamas agreed to release the last surviving American hostage, Edan Alexander. The negotiations that led to the release, led by Trump’s all-purpose foreign envoy Steve Witkoff, reportedly came after Hamas reached out via an “Arab Americans for Trump” group. Israel learned about the talks not from the White House, but from its own intelligence services. It was not the only surprise Netanyahu has gotten recently. During an Oval Office meeting with the prime minister last month, Trump dropped the surprise announcement that he was dispatching Witkoff and other negotiators to begin direct talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Netanyahu, who learned of the talks only after arriving in Washington, DC, has pushed the US to insist on a complete dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program. But officials including the secretary of state and vice president have suggested they might be open to Iran maintaining some type of civilian nuclear program — effectively returning to a similar framework to the one Trump tore up in 2018. And while Israel welcomed Trump’s decision in March to step up the US air campaign against the Houthis, the Yemeni militant group that has been firing missiles and drones at Israel as well as ships traveling through the Red Sea since the start of the Gaza war, Trump abruptly announced an end to the bombing earlier this month. He said he had received assurances from the Houthis that they would refrain from attacking US ships. (The rate at which the campaign was burning through American money and munitions also probably played a role.) Trump’s announcement made no mention of Israel, even though the Houthis had attacked Tel Aviv’s airport days earlier. The message was unmistakable: Israel could deal with the Houthis on their own. All in all, the Trump administration has been in direct talks with three of Israel’s main adversaries — Hamas, Iran, and the Houthis — to cut deals without Israel’s input, a nearly unprecedented situation according to longtime observers of relations between the two countries.“I don’t think there’s an administration, Democrat or Republican, that has even come close to undertaking the sort independent outreach that the Trump administration has now contrived over the course of the last three months,” said Aaron David Miller, a veteran Mideast peace negotiator who served in several US administrations. A changing GOP meets a changing Middle EastWhat explains the new frostiness in the US-Israel relationship? One answer may be that Trump is simply growing frustrated with Netanyahu. If there’s one consistent theme in Trump’s worldview, it’s skepticism about allies that, as he sees it, take more from America than they give. During his Oval Office meeting with Netanyahu, Trump brushed aside a suggestion that he should lift tariffs on Israel, saying “We give Israel $4 billion a year. That’s a lot. Congratulations, by the way.” Some Trump critics in the US have been crediting him for his approach to the relationship. The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman praised the president for realizing that “Netanyahu is not our friend,” while former Bernie Sanders foreign policy adviser Matt Duss credited him with handling “Netanyahu more effectively than alleged foreign policy expert Joe Biden did.” Netanyahu himself is probably not the only factor here. The second Trump term has also seen the rise in influence of the so-called “restrainer” wing of Republican foreign policy, who want to reduce America’s military footprint abroad, especially in the Middle East, at the expense of traditional hawks. While not uniformly anti-Israel (though some outside Trump allies like Tucker Carlson would probably qualify), the restrainers are much less inclined to think that US and Israeli interests are aligned. Vice President JD Vance, for instance, has stated that while Israel has a right to defend itself, he doesn’t believe the US should be drawn into a war with Iran. Trump’s speech in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, which included pointed shots at “neocons” and “nation builders,” may have been an indication of which faction is winning the battle for influence. And according to reporting by the Washington Post, former national security adviser Mike Waltz, one of Trump’s most traditionally hawkish advisers, was fired in early May in part because of Trump’s anger that Waltz had been in communication with the Israeli government about using military force against Iran. This is also not the same Middle East that Trump dealt with last time around. Israel isn’t the only longstanding US ally getting snubbed on Trump’s trip; previous presidents might have been expected to make a stop in Egypt or Jordan. But Trump is making a beeline for the Gulf, home of lucrative arms and computer chip deals, not to mention golf resorts and free 747s.During Trump’s first term, the Saudis and Emiratis were more or less aligned with the US and Israel on wider regional security matters — namely, the perceived danger posed by Iran. This was the context that made the Emiratis’ recognition of Israel in the Abraham Accords possible. This time, when Trump sits down with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, he’s likely to hear a different story. The Saudis and Iranians have reached a detente, and both Gulf countries have tried to extricate themselves from the long and brutal conflict with the Houthis in Yemen. Both now support a deal with Iran that would avoid war, and both supported an end to the US campaign against the Houthis. They’re also increasingly frustrated with Israel’s war in Gaza and the anger it has provoked throughout the region, including in their own populations. The scenes coming out of Gaza have raised the costs of appearing to be aligned with Israel.“Both MBS and MBZ have his respect. He listens to them,” said Novik, now a fellow at the Israel Policy Forum, of the Saudi and Emirati leaders. “They believe that what happens in Gaza doesn’t stay in Gaza. It’s destabilizing the region, and that’s bad for business.” All indications are that Trump is these days more interested in what he calls the “gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi” than the winding streets of Jerusalem. A case in point: both the first Trump administration and the Biden team sought a major regional deal that would tie US nuclear or security cooperation with Saudi Arabia to Saudi recognition of Israel. Though Trump is still calling for the Saudis — who have never recognized the Jewish state — to normalize relations, his team has reportedly dropped it as a demand for US-Saudi nuclear cooperation. If this comes to pass, it would effectively be giving up on what would be the crown jewel of the Abraham Accords process. A hands-off stance on GazaAll this is a dramatic shift, but it’s certainly not the change that critics of Biden’s support for Israel were hoping for. Trump has iced out the Israelis on regional diplomacy just as Israel is considering a plan for an “intensive escalation” of its military operations in Gaza. This could include the destruction of most of the enclave’s remaining buildings and and would give civilians a choice between moving to a tiny “humanitarian area” or leaving — though it’s not clear what countries would be willing to accept them if they did. Trump and his senior officials have not spoken out publicly about the plan and, according to Axios’ reporting, have “effectively given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a green light to do as he sees fit.” Israeli officials say the operation will begin if there is no ceasefire and hostage deal by the end of Trump’s visit to the region this week, though there are few indications that Trump is actively involved in pushing for one. It seems unlikely that Trump would employ pressure tactics that Biden was unwilling to use, such as conditioning military aid or addressing the Israeli public directly about the war. Trump has shifted radically on policy in the past, but for the moment, his cold shoulder doesn’t seem any more likely to put an end to the ongoing catastrophe in Gaza than Biden’s bear hug. See More:

U.S. President Donald Trump opened his four-day Middle East trip on Tuesday by paying a visit to Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for talks on U.S. efforts to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, end the war in Gaza, hold down oil prices and more.Prince Mohammed warmly greeted Trump as he stepped off Air Force One at King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital and kicked off his Middle East tour.The two leaders then retreated to a grand hall at the Riyadh airport, where Trump and his aides were served traditional Arabic coffee by waiting attendants wearing ceremonial gun-belts. Fighter jet escort The pomp began before Trump even landed. Royal Saudi Air Force F-15s provided an honorary escort for Air Force One as it approached the kingdom’s capital.Trump and Prince Mohammed also took part in a lunch at the Royal Court, gathering with guests and aides in an ornate room with blue accents and massive crystal chandeliers.As he greeted business titans with Trump by his side, Prince Mohammed was animated and smiling.It was a stark contrast to his awkward fist bump with then-President Joe Biden, who looked to avoid being seen on camera shaking hands with the prince during a 2022 visit to the kingdom.Biden had decided to pay a visit to Saudi Arabia as he looked to alleviate soaring prices at the pump for motorists at home and around the globe.At the time, Prince Mohammed’s reputation had been badly damaged by a U.S. intelligence determination that found he had ordered the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.But that dark moment appeared to be distant memory for the prince as he rubbed elbows with high-profile business executives — including Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — in front of the cameras and with Trump by his side.Later, the crown prince will fete Trump with a formal dinner. Trump is also slated to take part Tuesday in a U.S.-Saudi investment conference.“When Saudis and Americans join forces, very good things happen — more often than not, great things happen,” Saudi Investment Minister Khalid al-Falih said. Oil production Saudi Arabia and fellow OPEC+ nations have already helped their cause with Trump early in his second term by stepping up oil production. Trump sees cheap energy as a key component to lowering costs and stemming inflation for Americans. The Republican president has also made the case that lower oil prices will hasten an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.But Saudi Arabia’s economy remains heavily dependent on oil, and the kingdom needs a fiscal break-even oil price of $96 to $98 a barrel to balance its budget. It’s questionable how long OPEC+, of which Saudi Arabia is the leading member, is willing to keep production elevated. The price of a barrel of Brent crude closed Monday at $64.77.“One of the challenges for the Gulf states of lower oil prices is it doesn’t necessarily imperil economic diversification programs, but it certainly makes them harder,” said Jon Alterman, a senior Middle East analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Qatar and UAE next Trump picked the kingdom for his first stop, because it has pledged to make big investments in the U.S., but Trump ended up traveling to Italy last month for Pope Francis’ funeral. Riyadh was the first overseas stop of his first term.The three countries on the president’s itinerary — Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — are all places where the Trump Organization, run by Trump’s two elder sons, is developing major real estate projects. They include a high-rise tower in Jeddah, a luxury hotel in Dubai and a golf course and villa complex in Qatar.Trump is trying to demonstrate that his transactional strategy for international politics is paying dividends as he faces criticism from Democrats who say his global tariff war and approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine are isolating the United States from allies.He’s expected to announce deals with the three wealthy countries that will touch on artificial intelligence, expanding energy cooperation and perhaps new arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The administration earlier this month announced initial approval to sell $3.5 billion worth of air-to-air missiles for Saudi Arabia’s fighter jets.But Trump arrived in the Middle East at a moment when his top regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are far from neatly aligned with his approach. Trump’s decision to skip Israel remarkable, expert says Before the trip, Trump announced that Washington was halting a nearly two-month U.S. airstrike campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, saying the Iran-backed rebels have pledged to stop attacking ships along a vital global trade route.The administration didn’t notify Israel — which the Houthis continue to target — of the agreement before Trump publicly announced it. It was the latest example of Trump leaving the Israelis in the dark about his administration’s negotiations with common adversaries.In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t notified by the administration until after talks began with Hamas about the war in Gaza. And Netanyahu found out about the ongoing U.S. nuclear talks with Iran only when Trump announced them during an Oval Office visit by the Israeli leader last month.“Israel will defend itself by itself,” Netanyahu said last week following Trump’s Houthi truce announcement. “If others join us — our American friends — all the better.”William Wechsler, senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, said Trump’s decision to skip Israel on his first Middle East visit is remarkable.“The main message coming out of this, at least as the itinerary stands today, is that the governments of the Gulf … are in fact stronger friends to President Trump than the current government of Israel at this moment,” Wechsler said. Restarting efforts to normalize Israel-Saudi ties Trump, meanwhile, hopes to restart his first-term effort to normalize relations between the Middle East’s major powers, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Trump’s Abraham Accords effort led to Sudan, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco agreeing to normalize relations with Israel.But Riyadh has made clear that in exchange for normalization it wants U.S. security guarantees, assistance with the kingdom’s nuclear program and progress on a pathway to Palestinian statehood. There seems to be scant hope for making headway on a Palestinian state with the Israel-Hamas war raging and the Israelis threatening to flatten and occupy Gaza.Prince Mohammed last week notably hosted Palestinian Vice President Hussein Sheikh in Jeddah on the sheikh’s first foreign visit since assuming office in April.Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the crown prince appeared to be subtly signaling to Trump that the kingdom needs to see progress on Palestinian statehood for the Saudis to begin seriously moving on a normalization deal with the Israelis.“Knowing how the Saudis telegraph their intentions, that’s a preemptive, ‘Don’t even think of asking us to show any goodwill toward normalization,'” Abdul-Hussain said. Madhani reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. —Zeke Miller, Aamer Madhani and Jon Gambrell, Associated Press