An AI defense company backed by Spotify founder Daniel Ek will provide up to €1.46 billion (approximately $1.74 billion) worth of unmanned kamikaze drones to the German armed forces, according to a Financial Times report.

Also making money from the Tuesday deal is Peter Thiel– sponsored based in Berlin made the drone Starkwhich could reach €2.86 billion (equivalent to $3.4 billion).

The Ek-backed company, Munich-based Helsing, is one of the largest defense startups in Europeand FORMS strike drone and an uncrewed fighter jet.

Ek’s longtime support for the startup is not controversial. The Swedish billionaire’s venture capital firm Prima Materia is a key investor in Helsing, and Ek himself is a co-chairman. Recently, Prima Materia led a moderate $693 million investment round for a defense tech startup, which has caused widespread boycott calls as artists such as Massive Attack and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard pulled their music from the streaming platform in protest.

“The economic burden long placed on artists is now compounded by a moral and ethical burden, where the hard-earned money of fans and the creative efforts of musicians ultimately fund lethal, dystopian technologies,” Great Attack said at the time.

Spotify has repeatedly emphasized that it is a completely separate company from Prima Materia. Ek stepped down as CEO of Spotify last month, speaking Reuters in October 2025 he will focus his time on supporting European technology startups. But his presence on Spotify continues as executive chairman.

With governments around the world, including United Statesspending billions on contracts with AI companies, artificial intelligence is rapidly strengthening it ROLE in modern warfare. But experts are worried about unreliable to use still-developing technology in literal life-or-death situations, and anxiety gamification of war. AI-enabled war tech has been particularly deployed in active war zones such as Ukraine and Gaza, both of which have been described as real-time testing grounds.

Helsing has already signed contracts along with France, UK, Estonia, and Ukraine. A Bloomberg report claimed last month that the company’s weapons systems in Ukraine facing problems in front-line war trials, but Helsing denied the claims.

The AI-enhanced military tech relationship is just one aspect of the increasing scrutiny Spotify has endured over the past year or so. The popular music streaming platform has been acquired backlash in the way it treats artists and its willingness to accept and even support AI-generated music. The organizers of the national No Kings protestedas well as other grassroots organizers, also called for a boycott on Spotify after the platform ran ICE recruitment ads late last year.

Despite the growing number of boycott calls, Spotify had an incredible quarter. The company’s latest quarter saw the most users added in a single quarter, executives said SAYS in an earnings call on Tuesday, with monthly active users up 11% from a year ago.