Uber

Key Findings

• Economic: Uber made an equity investment in Flytrex, an Israeli commercial drone delivery company, disclosed in September 2025, creating a direct capital relationship with an Israeli technology entity.¹²³⁴⁵
• Political: Leaked Uber Files documents show Uber bypassed the Israeli Transport Ministry and held direct meetings with Prime Minister Netanyahu to accelerate market entry; no equivalent regulatory circumvention or executive-level engagement has been documented for other markets.⁶⁷⁸
• Not found: No public evidence of military contracts, digital-surveillance technology supply, or direct ties to Israeli defence or security bodies.

Target Profile

Key Facts:

• CIK: 0001543151
• Primary business lines: Ride-hailing (Mobility), food and grocery delivery (Uber Eats / Delivery), freight brokerage (Uber Freight)

Executive Summary

Uber Technologies, Inc. is a US-domiciled, publicly traded platform company whose core businesses are civilian mobility, food delivery, and freight brokerage. The audited evidence record identifies three principal vectors of Israeli-nexus activity, none of which rises to the level of direct defence contracting, weapons supply, or documented provision of technology to the Israeli state or military.

The most material current exposure is Uber’s September 2025 strategic equity investment in and commercial partnership with Flytrex Aviation Ltd., a Tel Aviv-based autonomous drone-delivery company.¹²³⁴⁵ The investment was described by Uber as “not material” to its consolidated financials; the technology transacted is civilian last-mile food delivery. Flytrex’s co-founders include individuals with documented IDF backgrounds, and the company has received co-funding from the Israel Innovation Authority - but no reviewed source attributes a weaponised or tactical variant to Flytrex’s product line, and the drones used by the IDF in Gaza identified in the audit record are manufactured by other firms.^910111213 The investment has generated documented civil-society boycott calls and a non-response from Uber to a BHRRC inquiry.^14151617

The second material vector is documented Israeli government lobbying during 2013–2017, disclosed in the ICIJ “Uber Files” leak. Uber executives, including then-CEO Travis Kalanick, bypassed the Israeli Transportation Ministry and engaged directly with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office; Uber drafted ride-sharing legislation submitted to the Knesset on three occasions; and the company retained the lobbying firm Gilad Government Relations & Lobbying.⁶⁷⁸ These events predate Dara Khosrowshahi’s tenure as CEO (2017) and are historical in character.

The third vector is operational presence: Uber operated and exited ride-hailing in Israel (2014–2017, 2022–2023), and Uber Eats maintains an active Israeli market presence. No public evidence was identified confirming that Uber or its Israeli franchise partners directly source or distribute goods from Israeli settlements, and no Uber contract for settlement construction, IDF base services, or military logistics was documented in any reviewed source.

The Military and Digital domains returned zero or near-zero scores - no defence contracts, no weapons supply, no documented provision of surveillance or digital technology to the Israeli state or military. The Economic score (V=4.43) is driven by the Flytrex investment and the documented Israeli lobbying record. The Political score (V=2.57) reflects the lobbying history and the asymmetry between Uber’s documented Ukraine humanitarian response and the absence of an identified named corporate response to the Gaza conflict. The resulting BRS 310, Tier D (Moderate) reflects a company with documented Israeli-nexus activity that does not include the most serious categories of involvement - direct defence contracting, weapons supply, or state-surveillance provision - but which carries material economic and political exposure through investment, lobbying, and operational presence.

Timeline of Relevant Events

Corporate Overview

Corporate Structure

Uber Technologies, Inc. is incorporated in Delaware and listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker: UBER). It has no parent company and no private equity sponsor. Major institutional shareholders include the Vanguard Group (~8–9%) and BlackRock (~6–7%), representing passive index fund positions.³⁸ The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) holds a significant equity position; PIF Deputy Governor Turqi Alnowaiser joined Uber’s Board in November 2023 and serves on the Audit Committee.³⁹⁴⁰ No Israeli government ownership stake or sovereign wealth fund with majority influence was identified.

Key Subsidiaries

Careem Networks FZ-LLC (acquired January 2020) is Uber’s principal subsidiary serving the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (MENASA) region. Careem had operated ride-hailing in Ramallah, West Bank, prior to the acquisition and resumed after reaching agreement with Palestinian transport authorities.^2324202122

Uber Freight Holdings, LLC operates the North American and European road-freight brokerage platform. No Israeli defence logistics contracts were identified in the audit record.⁴¹⁴²

Israeli Entities and Franchise Relationships

Flytrex Aviation Ltd. (Tel Aviv, Israel) - Uber holds a minority equity stake and commercial partnership as of September 2025. Uber Eats customers access Flytrex drone delivery in supported U.S. markets. Flytrex’s co-founders include Yariv Bash (IDF Artillery Corps background; SpaceIL co-founder) and Amit Regev (IDF intelligence Unit 8200 background alleged in BDS sources - unverified in independent sources).^12345434445 Flytrex has received Israel Innovation Authority co-funding.⁴⁶

Autobrains Technologies Ltd. (Tel Aviv, Israel) - Uber announced a June 2026 robotaxi programme in Munich integrating Autobrains’ autonomous-driving system. Autobrains was spun off from Cortica Group in 2019; founder Igal Raichelgauz began his career in an elite IDF intelligence unit.^3647484937

Gilad Government Relations & Lobbying - Israeli lobbying firm retained by Uber during the 2013–2017 period documented in the Uber Files. Current retainer status (2025–2026) is unconfirmed.⁷⁸⁵⁰

Operational Status in Israel

Uber’s ride-hailing service in Israel has been intermittent: launched 2014, disrupted by court order 2017, relaunched July 2022, and announced for exit in June 2023 - though press reporting of Miri Regev’s 2025 operational expansion suggests continued or renewed activity.^261819313233 Uber Eats operates actively in the Israeli market as of the audit date.⁵¹ No Uber R&D facility, technology laboratory, or accelerator programme in Israel was identified.²⁶

Domain Summaries

Military: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

The Military audit found no public evidence of Uber Technologies acting as a direct defence contractor, weapons supplier, or logistical sustainment provider to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, IDF, or any Israeli security body. Uber does not manufacture hardware, vehicles, drones, or munitions; its products are software platforms and brokerage services.⁴¹

The primary mechanism of Israeli-nexus involvement identified is equity investment and commercial partnership with Israeli technology companies that have founders with military backgrounds:

• Flytrex (September 2025): Uber invested “tens of millions of dollars” in the Tel Aviv-based autonomous drone-delivery company Flytrex to integrate drone delivery into Uber Eats pilot markets in the United States.⁹⁵²⁵³ Flytrex’s commercial drone is a small (~3 kg payload) civilian last-mile delivery platform; no reviewed source attributes a weaponised, tactical, or IDF-operated variant to Flytrex’s product line.¹²¹³ The IDF drones identified in reviewed reporting for Gaza operations are manufactured by Smart Shooter, Elbit Systems, and DJI - not Flytrex.¹²¹³ Uber is the investor/customer; Flytrex is the vendor. The military backgrounds of Flytrex’s founders are biographical facts about individuals; the Uber-attributable act is investment in and commercial use of a civilian drone-delivery service.⁹¹⁰

• Autobrains (June 2026): Uber announced a robotaxi programme in Munich integrating Autobrains’ autonomous-driving system. Autobrains’ founder began his career in an elite IDF intelligence unit; the company workforce is described as including IDF intelligence veterans.^36474849 The only Uber-attributable act is commercial integration of a civilian AV system into its ride-hailing platform. No defence prime contracting, military end-use, or IDF integration was attributed to this arrangement in any reviewed source.³⁶⁴⁷

No Uber contract for IDF base services, military logistics, settlement construction, or weapons supply was identified in any reviewed source. Uber is not named in the UN OHCHR settlements database.⁵⁴

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Uber’s strongest defence on the Military domain rests on several pillars:

1. Civilian character of transactions: The Flytrex investment and Autobrains partnership involve civilian food-delivery and ride-hailing technology. No weapons, ordnance, or tactical systems are transacted. Uber is the customer/investor, not a defence supplier.

2. Absence of defence contracts: No contract, tender, or framework agreement between Uber and any Israeli military or security body was identified in any reviewed source - including defence-export registries, NGO databases, UN documentation, and trade press.⁴¹

3. Founder backgrounds are not corporate acts: The IDF backgrounds of Flytrex’s founders are biographical facts about individuals. Under the audit’s entity-attribution rules, no transitive guilt is imputed: an Israeli vendor’s founders’ military service does not convert a civilian commercial transaction into a military one.

4. Sub-tier supply-chain opacity: The audit explicitly notes that Uber’s extended technology-supplier base has not been comprehensively mapped at sub-tier level for indirect links to Israeli defence primes. No such link was identified; the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but the audit records this as an inherent evidence gap, not a confirmed finding.⁴¹

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Digital: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

The Digital audit assessed the provision of surveillance, digital, data, or cyber technology to the Israeli state, military, or security services - the directionally serious case. No public evidence was identified of Uber providing surveillance technology, data, software, cloud capacity, AI capability, or digital services to any Israeli state, military, or security body.⁵⁵

The audit identified one confirmed Israeli-origin technology vendor relationship in which Uber is the customer:

• SentinelOne (Israeli-founded; commercial HQ in Mountain View, California; Tel Aviv office) supplies endpoint detection and response (EDR) software to Uber. Public evidence arose from the September 2022 Uber internal intrusion: incident reporting documented that the attacker reached SentinelOne among the security and engineering systems accessed.²⁷²⁸ Direction: Uber as customer, SentinelOne as vendor. No evidence of Uber providing technology to SentinelOne or to any Israeli entity.

No independently verified Uber customer relationship was confirmed for Wiz, CyberArk, Check Point, Claroty, Verint, or NICE Systems.⁵⁶⁵⁷ Uber’s PAM platform is Thycotic/Delinea - a US-origin vendor.²⁷²⁸

Autobrains (June 2026 robotaxi programme) and Mobileye (via Volkswagen MOIA, embedded in ID. Buzz vehicles for Uber’s Los Angeles robotaxi programme) represent Uber integrating Israeli-origin AV technology as a customer/integrator - not provision of technology to Israel.³⁷⁵⁸⁵⁹

No Uber R&D facility, engineering office, or technology-development footprint in Israel was identified.²⁶

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Uber’s strongest defence on the Digital domain:

1. No provision to Israeli state: The audit found no contract, MOU, or service agreement between Uber and the Israeli Ministry of Defense, IDF, Shin Bet, Mossad, or any Israeli state security body. This is the primary directionally serious Digital case, and no qualifying evidence was found.⁵⁵

2. Customer, not provider: The SentinelOne relationship is Uber procuring commercial cybersecurity software - the opposite directionality from the Digital concern. The Autobrains and Mobileye relationships similarly position Uber as the customer integrating Israeli-origin technology into its civilian platform.

3. In-house AI/ML platform: Uber’s core algorithmic systems (routing, surge pricing, fraud detection) are built on proprietary infrastructure documented on Uber’s engineering blog and are not attributed to Israeli-origin AI vendors.⁶⁰

4. Evidence gap: Uber does not publicly disclose its full IT and security vendor stack below named partnerships and incident-surfaced tooling. Vendor relationships not surfaced by press releases, SEC filings, or the 2022 incident are not in the public domain - an inherent limitation acknowledged in the audit.⁵⁵

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Economic: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

The Economic audit identified three economic vectors of Israeli-nexus involvement:

1. Equity investment in Flytrex Aviation Ltd. (September 2025). This is the most significant and confirmed Israeli capital exposure. Uber announced a strategic equity investment (reported as “tens of millions of dollars”) and commercial partnership with the Tel Aviv-based drone-delivery company to integrate drone delivery into Uber Eats pilot markets in the United States.¹²³⁴⁵ Uber described the investment as “not material” to its consolidated financials; the precise equity tranche is not publicly quantified.⁴ Flytrex has received Israel Innovation Authority co-funding (confirmed for an earlier $9.3M round; IIA participation in the 2025 round is unconfirmed).⁴⁶ The investment has generated documented civil-society boycott calls and a non-response from Uber to a BHRRC inquiry.^434414151617

2. Operational presence in Israel. Uber has operated ride-hailing intermittently in Israel (2014 launch; court-disrupted 2017; relaunched 2022; announced exit June 2023; subsequent regulatory expansion 2025).^261819313233 Uber Eats operates actively in the Israeli market.⁵¹ No Uber R&D facility, data centre, logistics hub, or real estate in Israel beyond the Flytrex equity stake was identified.¹

3. Documented Israeli government lobbying (2013–2017). The Uber Files disclosed Uber’s engagement with the Prime Minister’s Office, direct lobbying with Netanyahu, and Knesset legislation drafting. This is inventoried in full under Political; the economic dimension is the competitive advantage derived from state-level intervention in a regulated market.

Settlement-procurement claims - that Uber Eats “procures” or “launders” settlement-origin produce through its Israeli platform - were assessed and found to be inferential, not grounded in documented supplier contracts.¹ Uber Eats functions as a platform aggregator connecting consumers to merchants; it does not purchase, import, or warehouse food products. Where partner retailers stock settlement-origin produce, Uber facilitates consumer access but does not itself act as purchaser or distributor. No independently confirmed Uber Eats partnership with Shufersal or Rami Levy was identified.⁶²⁶³⁶⁴ No Uber contract for settlement construction, IDF base services, or military logistics was identified.⁴¹⁵⁴

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Uber’s strongest defence on the Economic domain:

1. “Not material” investment: Uber itself characterised the Flytrex investment as immaterial to consolidated financials. The precise equity stake is undisclosed, and Flytrex’s total funding across all rounds is approximately $60 million - a modest figure relative to Uber’s scale.⁴⁶⁵

2. Civilian technology: The Flytrex drone is a small (~3 kg payload) civilian last-mile delivery platform. No weaponised variant has been attributed to Flytrex in any reviewed source.¹²¹³

3. No direct settlement sourcing: No documented supplier contract between Uber (or any Uber subsidiary) and named Israeli agricultural aggregators (Mehadrin, Hadiklaim, Galilee Export, Agrexco) was identified. The settlement-procurement characterisation is inferential.¹

4. Platform intermediary model: Uber Eats does not take title to goods. Its economic relationship with Israeli merchants is commission-based intermediation, not procurement or distribution.

5. Divested operations: Uber’s ATG was sold to Aurora Innovation (a US company) in 2020; the Otto acquisition (2016) involved a US company with an Israeli-origin co-founder, not an Israeli company.²⁵⁶¹

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Political: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

The Political audit identified the following political vectors:

1. Documented Israeli government lobbying (2013–2017). The Uber Files - 124,000 leaked internal documents published by ICIJ and partner outlets in July 2022 - provide the most extensively documented instance of Uber’s engagement with Israeli governmental structures.⁶ Key findings:

• Senior Uber officials bypassed the Transportation Ministry (whose minister opposed Uber’s entry) and appealed directly to the Prime Minister’s Office. Then-CEO Travis Kalanick met Prime Minister Netanyahu at Davos in early 2016; Netanyahu promised to “break the resistance” of the transportation minister and publicly voiced support for Uber.⁷⁸
• Eli Groner, director-general of the PMO, advised Uber on messaging and media timing, noting “it’s important that the prime minister looks good.”⁷⁸
• Uber drafted ride-sharing legislation that was submitted to the Knesset three times by different lawmakers: by MK Moshe Feiglin (2014); by MKs Amir Ohana, Bezalel Smotrich, and Robert Ilatov (2016); and by MKs Eitan Ginzburg, Yorai Lahav Hertzanu, Idit Silman, and Nir Orbach (2021).⁷⁸
• Uber retained the Israeli lobbying firm Gilad Government Relations & Lobbying.⁷⁸⁵⁰
• Uber deployed a “kill switch” / data-blocking technology during regulatory enforcement operations.⁶⁷

These events predate Dara Khosrowshahi’s tenure (appointed 2017); no public evidence was identified attributing the Israel lobbying campaign personally to him.⁶⁷

2. Asymmetric corporate responsiveness. Uber issued named, explicit corporate responses to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine - expanding operations, providing free rides for refugees, adding an in-app donation button to the International Rescue Committee with corporate matching up to $1 million, raising approximately $5 million in combined donations, making additional $500,000 donations to the IFRC and World Food Program USA, delivering emergency supplies, and assisting evacuation of Ukrainian cultural heritage items.⁶⁶⁶⁷ No equivalent named corporate condemnation of any party to the Gaza conflict (October 2023 onward), and no comparable in-app fundraising or corporate matching campaign for Gaza humanitarian relief, was identified in the public record.⁶⁸¹⁴¹⁵ This is recorded as a factual matter of corporate-communications record, not as an inference.

3. Flytrex investment and boycott response. The September 2025 Flytrex investment triggered documented civil-society boycott activity. The BHRRC documented boycott calls and sought a response from Uber on 13 October 2025; Uber did not respond.¹⁴¹⁵ The Canadian BDS Coalition published a formal boycott call on 2 October 2025 citing the Flytrex partnership, IDF backgrounds of founders, “dual-use” drone technology, and Israel Innovation Authority backing.¹⁶ The Boycat consumer-boycott platform also published a boycott call.¹⁷

4. Board composition. Ronald Sugar, Uber’s non-executive Board Chair, was Chairman and CEO of Northrop Grumman Corporation (2003–2010), a major U.S. defence contractor whose products have been sold to Israel under U.S. Foreign Military Sales.⁶⁹ No verified personal donations by Sugar to FIDF, JNF, AIPAC, or comparable organisations, and no board memberships in Israel-advocacy organisations, were identified. Turqi Alnowaiser of Saudi Arabia’s PIF serves on the Board; no public evidence was identified of geopolitical directives transmitted to Uber management through this channel.³⁹⁴⁰

5. Careem West Bank operations. Careem (acquired by Uber January 2020) operated ride-hailing in Ramallah, West Bank, prior to and following the acquisition. Operations were suspended in November 2017 at the request of the Palestinian Authority (citing operation without licensing) and resumed after reaching agreement on metered-taxi fares and licensed drivers.^2324202122 No public evidence was identified that Careem or Uber directly services Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Uber’s strongest defence on the Political domain:

1. Historical lobbying: The Uber Files events (2013–2017) predate the current CEO’s tenure and reflect the Kalanick-era approach. No evidence was identified attributing the Israel lobbying campaign to Khosrowshahi personally.⁶⁷

2. Civilian commercial objective: The lobbying was directed at obtaining market access for a civilian ride-hailing service - not at advancing any military, settlement-expansion, or geopolitical objective. The competitive advantage sought was regulatory, not strategic-military.

3. Absence of anti-Palestinian intent: The lobbying sought to enter the Israeli market broadly, serving Israeli consumers. It was not directed at disadvantaging Palestinian businesses or supporting settlement activity.

4. Careem West Bank operations were lawful and licensed: Careem’s Ramallah operations were suspended at the PA’s request and resumed under a licensing agreement. No Israeli settlement service was documented.

5. Asymmetric responsiveness is not a policy position: The absence of a named corporate statement on Gaza does not constitute an affirmative policy position. Uber’s Ukraine response was a documented humanitarian logistics mobilisation; the absence of a comparable Gaza response is a factual record gap, not a confirmed political alignment.

6. Board members’ prior careers are not corporate acts: Ronald Sugar’s Northrop Grumman tenure predates his Uber board service and reflects an individual career history. No verified personal donations to Israel-advocacy organisations were identified.⁶⁹

Named Entities and Evidence Map

BDS-1000 Score (V4)

• V_MAX: 4.43 Sum_OTHERS: 2.62
• BRS Score: 310 Tier: D (Moderate)

What drives the score: The Economic domain (V=4.43) is V_MAX, driven by Uber’s confirmed September 2025 equity investment in and commercial partnership with Israeli drone-delivery company Flytrex, combined with documented operational presence in the Israeli market and the historical Uber Files lobbying record. The Political score (V=2.57) reflects the same lobbying history and the documented asymmetry between Uber’s named Ukraine humanitarian response and the absence of an identified named corporate response to the Gaza conflict. The Military score (V=0.05) reflects the civilian character of the Flytrex investment - a customer/investor relationship in a drone-delivery platform, not a defence contract. The Digital score is zero: no provision of surveillance or digital technology to the Israeli state or military was documented.

Method note: Scores are evidence-only, derived from the four domain audits. V-Domain = Impact × Magnitude × Proximity, scale-free. BRS = V_MAX × (V_MAX + Sum_OTHERS). Tier D (Moderate) reflects documented Israeli-nexus activity that does not include direct defence contracting, weapons supply, or state-surveillance provision.

Methodology Note

• Evidence-only basis: All claims in this dossier trace to the four domain audits (Military, Digital, Economic, Political). No claim is made where audits found “No public evidence identified.” Where audits marked claims unverified or unresolved, those caveats are carried honestly - soft claims are not hardened.
• Scale-free Impact scoring: Impact (I) measures activity type - whether the involvement is weapons supply, investment, lobbying, or platform operation. Higher I values reflect more serious categories of involvement. The Military and Digital domains returned low I scores because no defence contracting or state-surveillance provision was documented.
• Magnitude (M) and Proximity (P): M measures scale - investment size, operational scope, revenue exposure. P measures directness - whether Uber is the principal, a partner, or a distant supplier. The Flytrex investment scores high on P (direct equity and commercial partnership) but moderate on M (described as “not material”).
• Temporal rule - divested/exited operations: The Otto acquisition (2016) and ATG divestment to Aurora (2020) are recorded as historical and pre-scope. The 2013–2017 Uber Files lobbying is recorded as historical. Uber’s Israeli ride-hailing exit (June 2023) is noted; the subsequent 2025 regulatory expansion is noted as ongoing.
• Entity attribution - no transitive guilt: Israeli technology vendors’ founders’ military backgrounds, other clients, or parent groups’ separate activities are not attributed to Uber. Uber’s act is the investment in or commercial use of a civilian service.
• Settlement operation dual-counting: Where a settlement operation generates both economic benefit and political facilitation, it is counted in both Economic and Political. The Uber Files lobbying is counted in both domains.
• “No public evidence identified”: This formulation is used wherever audit checks found nothing. It is not a claim that no activity occurred - only that no public evidence of it was found in the reviewed sources.

End Notes