Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing drone-maker Anzu Robotics, alleging that the U.S.-based company misled consumers and concealed its ties with the Chinese communist regime.
Paxton announced the lawsuit on Feb. 19, accusing the Texas-based startup of rebranding products sourced from Chinese drone giant Da Jiang Innovations, commonly known as DJI.
Founded in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in 2006, DJI has been flagged by U.S. regulators as a security risk because of its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The U.S. Commerce Department added DJI to its export control list in 2020 for aiding the CCP’s human rights abuses. The Treasury banned U.S.-based individuals from trading DJI shares the following year because of similar concerns. The Pentagon blacklisted DJI as a Chinese military company in 2022, noting that the Chinese regime requires all Chinese companies to allow it to use them as part of its military-civil fusion strategy.
In the lawsuit, Paxton accused Anzu of making false and misleading representations to Texans about its business relationship with DJI, data-sharing practices, and software development.
Anzu markets itself as an American-owned, made-in-Malaysia alternative, but much of its drone technology is licensed from DJI, which receives payments for every drone that Anzu orders, the complaint alleges.
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