Israeli Drone CEO Wants Warfare Modelled on 'Ender's Game' Where a Child Unknowingly Wipes Out Entire Species

The chief executive of an Eric Trump-backed Israeli drone company has named Ender's Game as his firm's end goal, invoking the science-fiction novel in which a boy unknowingly destroys an alien civilisation while believing he is taking part in a simulation.

Aviv Shapira, co-founder and CEO of Xtend, told Vanity Fair he has posters for the film adaptation all over the company's office. According to Shapira, Xtend has supplied 10,000 drones to the Israel Defense Forces since the start of the war in Gaza, and the company announced an order worth about £30 million ($40.5 million) for 6,000 drone systems under a US defence procurement programme this month.

Asked whether such technology makes war feel like a game, Shapira replied: 'Video games are really war games.'

'Our End Goal Is Ender's Game'

Shapira made the remarks during an afternoon with Vanity Fair reporter Margaux MacColl at a Washington Commanders game, where he was pitching drones that fire nets at unauthorised civilian drones over the stadium. Over lunch, he explained that Xtend's end goal is Ender's Game, Vanity Fair reported on 21 October 2026.

According to the magazine, Shapira has posters for the 2013 film adaptation of the 1985 novel by Orson Scott Card all over the company's office. The ambition he described was technological: a world in which soldiers can, like the book's main character, control many drones at once. Vanity Fair did not report him endorsing the novel's ending.

In the novel, the child prodigy Andrew 'Ender' Wiggin is trained through a series of battle simulations. He believes he is still playing a game when he directs a real fleet to destroy the home planet of an alien species. Vanity Fair noted that the character only discovers too late that his kill counts were real, and that the destruction he ordered was not a game.

The magazine also quoted Shapira's brother and co-founder, Matteo Shapira, describing the company's work with the Israel Defense Forces in an earlier interview. 'We essentially built a computer game about how to defeat the bad guys without putting ourselves at risk,' he said.

The remarks spread quickly online after the X user Nick Cleveland-Stout posted on X: 'The CEO of the biggest drone company in Israel says that his objective is to recreate Ender's Game, the book where the main character thinks he's playing a video game but actually commits genocide.' The post had been viewed more than 205,000 times when checked on Friday, 23 October.

'Video Games Are Really War Games'

Shapira, 45, came to the defence industry from gaming and sports broadcasting. In 2011, he co-founded Replay, a 3D video start-up that won two Emmys for its sports camerawork and was acquired by Intel in a deal reported to be worth £150 million ($200 million). He co-founded Xtend in 2018 with his brother, engineer Adir Tubi and drone racer Rubi Liani.

Xtend's drones are flown using virtual reality glasses that give a first-person view, and a small pointing device or voice commands. Vanity Fair said one demonstration video looked 'worryingly like Call of Duty'.

Shapira originally hoped to run drone races in empty shopping malls. Then, in 2019, the team took a drone to the Gaza border to intercept incendiary balloons launched by Hamas. 'We intercepted it in 10 seconds,' he told the magazine. 'The bomb fell on their side and we were excited.'

Defence became about 50 per cent of the business after that, rising to 80 per cent after the 7 October 2023 attacks. Xtend has provided 10,000 drones to Israeli forces since the war in Gaza began, according to Shapira. The IDF footage of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar's final moments was reportedly filmed by an Xtend drone. Shapira said he could not officially confirm that, adding: 'We are the biggest drone company in Israel.'

Asked whether drones had made war feel too much like a game, Shapira rejected the idea. 'It's not a gamification; it's more of a modernization,' he said. 'Video games are really war games.' He argued that 'there's many fewer civilian casualties today in war than there used to be just because of AI and technology'.

When MacColl pointed out that the death toll in Gaza had passed 70,000, Shapira replied: 'Not because of drones. Because of bombs coming from the skies.' He said a human always makes the final decision on targeting.

The Eric Trump Connection

Xtend went public in September through a reverse merger with a small listed construction company, with funding from American Ventures, which counts Eric Trump as an investor. Eric Trump also personally invested in the merger, Vanity Fair reported.

Shapira said he has met Eric Trump only once, during due diligence at the American Ventures office in Palm Beach, where he had him remotely fly a hundred drones in Tampa.

Vanity Fair reported that the company had just won a $40 million contract from the Department of Defense. Xtend announced on 13 October an order worth about £30 million ($40.5 million) for 6,000 STRIKER systems following the US Drone Dominance Programme, The Defense Post reported.

Asked about the president's son's involvement, Shapira turned the question around. 'Does it bother you in some way?' he asked. Asked whether he was concerned about potential congressional scrutiny over conflicts of interest, he said defence contracting is 'very methodical' and that Eric Trump has 'nothing' to do with it.

The investment is part of a wider pattern. Companies backed by investment groups linked to Eric Trump and his brother Donald Trump Jr. have won at least £2.4 billion ($3.2 billion) in government business, according to a Washington Post analysis cited by Vanity Fair. The figure covers multiple companies, not Xtend alone.

Shapira insists Xtend is not really a defence firm at all. 'We're a physical AI company,' he said, describing software that can pilot drones and other machines such as Boston Dynamics' robot dog, Spot.

After lunch, Shapira left the stadium for a meeting with a general.