Texas Sues Drone Maker Anzu Over Alleged Ties to CCP

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Feb 20, 2026 - 10:50 Updated: Feb 20, 2026 - 03:32
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Texas Sues Drone Maker Anzu Over Alleged Ties to CCP

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing drone-maker Anzu Robotics, alleging 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 due to 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 due to similar concerns. The Pentagon blacklisted DJI as a Chinese military company in 2022, noting 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, Malaysia-made alternative, but much of its drone technology is licensed from DJI, which receives payments for every drone Anzu orders, the complaint alleges.

DJI also retains control of the cryptographic keys embedded in Anzu’s drones’ firmware, according to the lawsuit.

“This means DJI, and by extension the ruling CCP, has the technical capability to access, modify, or extract data from Anzu drones,” Paxton alleged in the complaint filed in a Texas state court.

The complaint cites concerns surrounding an Anzu commercial drone model, the Raptor T, which the House Select Committee on the CCP described as a DJI Mavic 3 model “painted green.” Technical analysis showed that the hardware components used in Raptor T were identical to those in the Mavic 3, with the printed circuit boards showing no differences between the two models, according to the lawsuit.

Anzu’s reliance on DJI’s software and firmware leaves its products vulnerable to the same security vulnerabilities and potential data access by the CCP, according to the lawsuit.

Paxton is seeking civil penalties for violation of the state’s deceptive trade practices laws and other relief authorized by state law.

Anzu didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Anzu Robotics products are nothing more than a 21st century trojan horse linked to the CCP,” Paxton said in a Feb. 18 statement.

The lawsuit is the second Paxton filed this week in an effort to scrutinize U.S.-based companies’ ties to the CCP. On Feb. 17, Paxton announced a lawsuit against Wi-Fi router maker TP-Link. While the labels on TP-Link products say the routers were made in Vietnam, most of their components were sourced from China, leaving Americans’ data vulnerable to cyberattacks, according to that lawsuit.

Paxton, in the latest statement, pledged to protect Texans by stopping the CCP’s influence in the state.

“No company will be allowed to deceive Texans and serve as a pathway for foreign adversaries to exploit American markets, access personal data, or threaten our national security,” he wrote.

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