On 14 October the FCC added classified Pentagon letters about DJI and Autel to the record of both companies’ challenges to their place on its Covered List. It also said it “did not rely upon these materials” when it put them there.
The notice came from the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. The letters went from the Department of War to congressional committees under section 1709 of the 2025 defence act, the provision aimed at the two Chinese drone makers. The public file gets only their redacted cover pages, signed by Michael Cadenazzi, the department’s assistant secretary for industrial base policy. The letters themselves are under seal.
The Pentagon had pointed the FCC to them in April. In a filing opposing DJI, it said the letters met its duty under section 1709 to report to Congress. The FCC now has them on file but says its December decision did not rest on them.
That decision, on 22 December 2025, put DJI and Autel equipment on the Covered List, which bars new FCC approvals. DJI asked the FCC to reconsider in January, and Autel asked the full Commission to review it. Neither request has been decided.
A day later, on 15 October, the bureau filed a letter from Senator Rick Scott, who sponsored the bill on which section 1709 was based. Scott wrote that DJI and Autel “present a national security threat” and that he strongly supports adding their technology to the Covered List. He said Congress had studied the threat through classified briefings, public hearings and meetings with industry.
DJI is also fighting in court. It petitioned the Ninth Circuit on 20 February, as case 26-1029, and in an April brief put its 2026 US losses at about $1.56 billion, its own figure.
On 14 October, the day of the first notice, DJI launched its Dock 4 and Matrice 5TD drone-in-a-box system. Its specification page gives transmitter power under Canadian, European, Chinese and Japanese rules, and none under the FCC’s. The Dock 3 page does.
