CFIUS Asks Ukrainian Tech Firm to Divest Its Stake in US Space Company, Report Says
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. has asked a Ukrainian businessman and his technology company to sell its stake in Texas-based Firefly Aerospace due to national security concerns, Bloomberg reported Dec. 29. CFIUS is concerned that valuable U.S.…
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technology could be transferred from Firefly to Ukraine or Russia via tech entrepreneur Max Polyakov and his firm Noosphere Venture Partners, the report said, and has asked the firm to sell its 50% stake in Firefly. Noosphere told CFIUS it plans to follow through with the request and sell its stake, the report said. Firefly, which develops commercial space launch vehicles, subsequently announced it would pause preparations for its next launch, according to a Dec. 30 report from SpaceNews. Noosphere told Bloomberg that it understands “CFIUS’s actions come amid rising tensions between Ukraine and Russia,” adding that the firm is “working diligently to address CFIUS’s concerns in the most efficient and appropriate manner possible.” Polyakov in 2020 agreed to step down from the company’s board and Firefly’s day-to-day activities “to help make it easier for the company to win U.S. government and military contracts and ease some of the underlying tensions,” Bloomberg said. Firefly, Noosphere and the Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.