Palmer Luckey’s OC defense phenomenon Anduril Industries is coming even closer to a central role in President Donald Trump’s orbit.
Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital is co-leading a funding round that could nearly double the Costa Mesa startup’s valuation to $60 billion, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal reported March 3. Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President Trump.
Thrive is co-leading the financing round with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, one of the pillars of Silicon Valley tech financing, the news outlets reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
Anduril is seeking to raise about $4 billion, with both firms jointly leading the round, according to Bloomberg. Anduril, which Luckey co-founded in 2017, was valued at $30.5 billion last year when it raised about $2.5 billion.
The Anduril deal marks the second recent major investment made by a Trump-related entity in an Orange County company.
In December, Trump Media & Technology Group, which has 29 employees and is based in Sarasota, Florida, agreed to invest up to $300 million in Foothill Ranch-based TAE Technologies. The nuclear fusion company has been working for almost three decades to harness the same process that powers the sun.
The parent company of Trump’s Truth Social platform plans to merge with TAE in an all-stock transaction valued at more than $6 billion, including debt. The deal is expected to close this year, subject to various approvals.
Luckey the ‘It Guy’
Luckey has been a long-time supporter of Trump, dating back to his first presidential campaign in 2016.
The New York Times said March 2 that Luckey “has become the It Guy as President Trump aims to modernize the U.S. military with autonomous weapons.” The expression comes from the decades-old phrase “It Girl,” a popular expression used to describe a glamorous, trendsetting woman.
Anduril is one of several OC companies where investor interest in the new defense world has exploded, including Mach Industries in Huntington Beach and Dzyne in Irvine.
Anduril’s offerings include air and sea drones, border protection and AI, while it remains in tough competition for a U.S. Air Force contract to build autonomous fighter jets.
The company apparently does not plan to make the earthshaking bombs and missiles that Trump has been using in Iran.
$60B Valuation Possible
A $60 billion valuation for privately held Anduril would make it Orange County’s most valuable company, at least on paper.
By comparison, publicly traded Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE: EW) in Irvine boasts a market cap of $50 billion.
Anduril would also move closer to the value of traditional defense makers like Maryland-based defense leader Lockheed Martin Corp., which has a market cap of $151 billion.
Spokespeople for Anduril, Thrive and Andreessen Horowitz did not respond to Business Journal requests for confirmation of the Bloomberg report.
A spokesperson for Anduril declined to comment on funding round reports.
Anduril has been expanding at a breakneck pace, building major plants near Columbus, Ohio, and in Long Beach, and adding industrial and office space in Orange County. In 2025, Anduril leased 190,000 square feet of space at the nearby The Hive adding to its 640,000 square foot headquarters in Costa Mesa. It was the largest office lease transaction made that year.
The firm also leased nearly 163,000 square feet of warehouse space at the newly built Harbor Logistics Center in the South Coast Metro area of Santa Ana. (See 2025 Top Real Estate Deals page 21 and 22).
Hawaiian Shirts for Anduril’s Public Face
Luckey became famous for founding virtual reality headset maker Oculus VR, which he sold to Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, now Meta, for more than $2.2 billion in 2014.
Now 33 years old, he is well on his way to building his third unicorn, Erebor Bank, a digital-only national bank for tech startups and the wealthy that recently received approval from the Trump administration. Erebor is reportedly launching with $635 million in capital and a focus on cryptocurrency; it reportedly has a valuation topping $4 billion.
With his trademark Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts, Luckey is Anduril’s public face, though he does not hold an executive role (see story this page).
Last year, the company said that revenue was on track to double to about $2 billion, driven by U.S. and allied defense contracts, according to Bloomberg.
Luckey has constantly warned that the U.S. is falling behind China in battlefield technologies, while news reports imply the war in Iran could leave U.S. military supplies dangerously low.
Even the New York Times Highlights Luckey’s Aloha Shirts, Cargo Shorts
Anyone writing a news story about Costa Mesa defense chieftain Palmer Luckey seems almost compelled to point out the rising defense titan’s uniform of Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts.
Add the New York Times to the list.
Luckey was “clad in a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts” as he arrived at a security conference with U.S. defense and intelligence officials in December, the newspaper reported on March 2.
The Times accompanied its article with a sweeping, heroic-looking portrait of Luckey that looks as if it came from the annals of Soviet propaganda, with his Hawaiian shirt as an added twist.
Luckey’s overall visual impression contrasts completely with the standard image of medal-bedecked generals and company leaders arriving at the Pentagon.
But as the proverb says: “Clothes make the man,”
—Kevin Costelloe
