GoKawiilis a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
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DJI ban: how the world’s biggest dronemaker is getting shoved out of the US
What happens when DJI, the world’s leading maker of drones, is no longer welcome in the United States? You might think other dronemakers would see a huge opportunity with their competitor out of the picture. That didn’t happen.
In the 15 months since the United States triggered an automatic ban on future DJI products, no company has rushed to serve the consumers, prosumers, photographers, videographers, farmers, surveyors, and more that use DJI gear. Instead, US dronemakers are largely focused on a more lucrative opportunity: a billion dollars the Pentagon has earmarked for drones that kill.
Drone professionals are scared, says Vic Moss, cofounder of the Drone Service Providers Alliance, an advocacy group that represents over 33,000 pilots nationwide. “We don’t have what we need to complete the jobs we do if we don’t have DJI drones,” he tells The Verge.
But nobody is capable of filling DJI’s shoes, experts say. And those who might have tried are being scared off by Trump policy.
Last year, things were looking up for Zero Zero Robotics, one of the few Chinese dronemakers ever to step out of DJI’s shadow in the US. In 2024, my colleague Thomas Ricker gave its HoverAir X1 a glowing review; despite early issues, the company’s upscale X1 Pro and Promax made it into Costco and Best Buy stores. In August 2025, it announced a potential holy-grail product: a self-flying drone that can take off and land on water. It was on my shortlist of companies that might thrive if DJI got hosed.
But in December, after the Trump administration instituted its de facto import ban on all future foreign drones, Zero Zero’s US backers began to worry they might never receive the waterproof drone they paid for. What was expected to be a ban on just two Chinese dronemakers, DJI and Autel, had turned into a ban on every consumer dronemaker outside the US — and Zero Zero hadn’t managed to outrun that ban.
No device with a radio can be imported, sold, or marketed in the US unless the FCC authorizes it first, and that’s exactly what the FCC has stopped doing for foreign-made drones and foreign-made Wi-Fi routers. Devices certified before the ban are allowed, but Zero Zero didn’t clear two unexpected hurdles.
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