Israeli spyware maker NSO Group, behind the notorious Pegasus software, is about to get a second life — this time as an US-owned asset.
💵 A team of investors led by Hollywood producer Robert Simonds has struck a deal worth tens of millions to take over the scandal-ridden company, still $500 million in debt.
The company HQ will in Israel under Defense Ministry supervision — but on paper, NSO becomes a US company.
➡️ Officially the takeover is a bailout, but in practice it’s a whitewash: Washington blacklisted NSO in 2021 for targeting US diplomats, but now the same spyware could soon be cleared for use in domestic espionage by the FBI and National Security Agency.
Analysts see the move as part of a broader trend — the merging of Western tech firms into a single surveillance architecture.
Palantir, OpenAI, Anduril, Oracle and now NSO — different names in one network where AI, predictive analytics and intelligence agencies increasingly operate as a unified system.
💬 “The era of testing spyware abroad is over,” one analyst said. “Now the experiment moves home.”
The deal still requires approval from both Israeli and US regulators, a process that may be complicated by Simonds' past links to Chinese investment firms.
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