Five shameless moments of Iran war opportunism & grifting

1. Lockheed Martin CEO: wartime Trump Pentagon a "golden opportunity"

Late last month, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet lavished praise on the Trump administration for rolling out the red carpet to the defense industry.

“This is a golden opportunity right now based on who’s in government,” Taiclet told investors during an earnings call. He cited in particular officials’ “willingness to change” and “the demand that they have for what we do and what our partners in our industry do.”

That “demand” of course is war, and the administration has pretty much been in it since Trump’s 2025 inauguration, from supporting Israel in its Gaza and Lebanon operations, firefights with the Houthis, and now Iran. Lockheed has signed billions in contracts with the Pentagon since the beginning of the year, mostly to replenish missiles. Lockheed Martin also has an agreement with the Pentagon to quadruple its production of THAAD interceptors by 2027.

And the U.S. has used many of them both. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies found late last month, the U.S. has burned up over 45% of its Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs) and roughly half of its THAAD and Patriot missile defense interceptors.

To refill these stocks, the U.S. is mulling a possible Iran war supplemental package — slated to cost an estimated $80 to $100 billion — to replace lost munitions and other military equipment. According to Mike Fredenburg in his reporting for RS in 2024, the U.S. pays way too much for each missile, a lot more than it should for say, a SM-2 missile ($1.2 million-$2 million a piece) or SM-6 (upwards of $5 million each), but since there are only a handful of prime contractors in the business, they can charge whatever they want.

Trump's sons roll in the drone industry dough

Powerus, a drone firm funded by President Trump’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., received an Air Force contract for an unspecified number of interceptor drones last week. Bloomberg reported last month that Powerus is also in talks with the United Arab Emirates about a potential sale of drones that can counter Iranian attacks.

In recent months, the Trump brothers have gone all out on defense tech, lining themselves up to profit from the wars their father is waging. Besides Powerus, Eric Trump has invested in Israeli attack drone firm and DoD contractor Xtend, whose drones have seen use in Iran, through a multimillion dollar contract with an unnamed Middle Eastern government. Donald Trump Jr., for his part, backs drone parts startup Unusual Machines and is also a partner at defense- and tech-oriented venture capital (VC) firm 1789 Capital.

3. Defense-contractor funded think tanker: Iran war is a bargain!

Last week, the Pentagon estimated that the Iran war has cost about $25 billion. Matthew Kroenig, a senior director at the defense contractor-funded Atlantic Council, called the low-ball price tag a “very good value.”

“The entire U.S. defense budget is roughly $1 trillion and designed to deal with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran,” Kroenig wrote on X. “It only cost 2.5% of the annual defense budget to seriously degrade one of the four.”

But others have to pay for Kroenig’s bargain.

"I'm sure the farmers, trucking companies, and other small businesses that are going belly up because of soaring gas prices won't be surprised to hear that a war industry funded think tank believes the Iran war is a ‘very good value,’” Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, told RS.

The total cost of the Iran war has been a point of contention. Critics challenged the Pentagon’s $25 billion estimate; U.S. officials have since told CBS the conflict has cost around $50 billion. Last month, Harvard economist Linda Bilmes predicted taxpayers will pay at least $1 trillion for it in the long term. And none of these estimates include the broader impact of the war on the global economy.

According to the Quincy Institute’s Think Tank Funding Tracker, the Atlantic Council has received nearly $13 million from Pentagon contractors since 2019.

4. Literally gambling on war

Prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi have seemingly allowed those with insider knowledge of wartime events to gamble on — and profit handsomely from — their outcomes.

On March 23, anonymous traders bet about $500 million that crude oil prices would go down. That was just 15 minutes before Trump announced the U.S. would put off planned strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure — which sent oil prices falling.

Another suspiciously timed trade occurred on April 21; betters wagered about $430 million on falling crude oil prices, right before Trump said he would extend the U.S. truce with Iran indefinitely. That announcement likewise led to a drop in oil prices. The timing and amount of funds placed in the bets have led experts to contend they were not lucky, but were likely made based on advance knowledge of the announcements.

5. Political influence blitz

Chasing continued windfalls, weapons contractors are pushing for greater political influence in Washington.

As NOTUS reported last week, Political Action Committees (PACs) tied to 11 major weapons contractors sunk about $4.7 million into federal congressional campaigns and political party committees from January 1 through March 31. As of late March, nearly three dozen firms had newly registered to lobby the U.S. government on defense and energy-related issues since the conflict began, according to the Washington Times.

As contractors see it, money is on the table. In addition to a possible Iran war supplemental, Congress is also considering the White House’s request for a record $1.5 trillion defense budget for fiscal year 2027 — a jump up from fiscal year 2026’s defense budget, which reached $1 trillion for the first time.

"Every year Pentagon contractors get more and more taxpayer dollars and then use some of that money to convince Congress to give them even more money next year,” Freeman argued. “It's a win-win-win for contractors, lobbyists, and Congress.”