Aureus Greenway (AUGS) Stock Surges 55% on Trump-Backed Drone Merger

TLDR

• Aureus Greenway Holdings (AUGS) surged 55% after the WSJ reported a merger with Powerus, a drone company backed by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
• The deal is structured as a reverse merger, taking Powerus public on Nasdaq.
• Powerus targets production of 10,000+ drones monthly and has made three acquisitions in six months.
• The transaction is backed by a $9 million private placement and involves Dominari Securities as placement agent.
• The merger aligns with the Pentagon’s $1.1 billion Drone Dominance initiative and a U.S. ban on new Chinese drones.

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Aureus Greenway Holdings (AUGS) jumped 55% Monday after the Wall Street Journal reported the Florida golf course holding company will merge with Powerus, a drone manufacturer backed by President Trump’s sons.

Aureus Greenway Holdings Inc., AGH

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are supporting Powerus through American Ventures, their joint investment vehicle. The deal is structured as a reverse merger, which will bring Powerus onto the Nasdaq exchange within months.

Powerus was founded last year and is based in West Palm Beach, Florida. The company sells aerial and maritime drones and has already bought three companies in the past six months.

Powerus says it is working toward building more than 10,000 drones per month. That would put it ahead of most U.S. drone manufacturers by volume.

Other investors in the transaction include Unusual Machines, where Donald Trump Jr. sits on the advisory board and holds a stake. South Korea’s Corporate Governance Improvement Fund also committed $50 million to the deal.

Dominari Securities, an investment bank linked to the Trump family, is acting as placement agent for the financing.

The Deal Structure

On March 8, 2026, Aureus Greenway agreed to merge its subsidiary, Aureus Merger Sub Inc., into Autonomous Power Corporation in an all-stock deal. All target shares, options, and warrants will convert into Aureus equity at a fixed exchange rate.

The agreement includes an earn-out of up to 50 million additional shares tied to performance milestones. Board and management control will shift to Autonomous Power’s leadership once the deal closes.

Closing conditions include shareholder approval, Nasdaq listing clearance, and a $9 million private placement priced at $3.00 per share. The placement was agreed with institutional and accredited investors on March 6, 2026.

The structure also includes lock-up and leak-out restrictions to manage post-closing stock sales.

Pentagon Tailwind

The merger arrives as the Pentagon pushes its Drone Dominance initiative, a program targeting $1.1 billion in spending to procure hundreds of thousands of U.S.-made systems by 2027.

The Trump administration has also moved to ban new Chinese drone purchases in the U.S., opening up domestic market space for manufacturers like Powerus.

Powerus CEO Andrew Fox said the reverse merger route would give the company access to public capital markets to fund manufacturing expansion and further acquisitions.

Aureus Greenway currently has a market cap of $73.47 million. Average daily trading volume before the news was 49,011 shares.

The technical sentiment signal on AUGS is listed as a Strong Buy following the announcement.

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