Anduril founder says stalled $14bn Taiwan arms package is hurting business

The founder of US defence technology company Anduril, Palmer Luckey, said on Saturday that the months-long hold-up of a $14 billion American arms package for Taiwan is weighing on his company's business, and that he has raised the matter with President Donald Trump.

The package has been awaiting Trump's approval for months. After a summit in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping in May, Trump said he was keeping it in abeyance and described it as a "very good negotiating chip".

Speaking to reporters in Taipei, where he attended a defence forum alongside Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, Luckey said he did not know the current status of the package. "It's definitely affecting the business in that our business with Taiwan would be in a different place if you had that $14 billion moving forward," he said, declining to detail what work was being delayed for Anduril.

Luckey said the delay had a broader and longer-lasting cost. "It's that as long as that's stuck, you don't have continued forward progress in other areas," he said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside office hours.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own, an assertion Taipei rejects, and has repeatedly urged Washington to stop selling weapons to the island. Beijing has sanctioned several US companies that sell arms to Taiwan, including Luckey himself, who was sanctioned in December.

The United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, though Trump has called that commitment into question. The Taiwan issue is expected to figure prominently when Xi meets Trump in Washington next week.

Luckey said he had discussed the arms sales with Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He said the administration was open to hearing views on the matter but was mindful of the consequences of selling more weapons to Taiwan, such as China using its leverage over rare earths that are crucial to technology companies.

"And so I've heard people say, shouldn't he just approve the deal and damn the consequences? But he's getting briefed by other people who are not me, and they're saying, 'If you do this, here's what's going to happen to American consumers'," Luckey said. "He has to weigh all of those things. He's in a really difficult, difficult situation."

Anduril, whose Altius drone is used by Taiwan, has become one of Silicon Valley's most closely watched defence firms as drones reshape warfare in Ukraine and the Middle East and as Trump pushes the Pentagon to adopt cutting-edge technologies to counter China.

Lai, who shook hands with Luckey at the start of the forum, has made drones a central part of Taiwan's military modernisation. Last year, Taiwan unveiled its first missile to be jointly produced with a US company, Anduril's Barracuda-500, an autonomous, low-cost cruise missile.