Israel's NSO Group, the company behind the controversial tool Pegasus, confirmed that a US-based investment group had acquired control of the company.
This move marks a remarkable turning point in NSO's turbulent history, when the company was once banned from trading by the US government for allegations related to cyber Espionage.
According to TechCrunch, NSO spokesman Oded Hershowitz said the US investment group poured tens of millions of USD into the company and now has management.
Although Mr. Hershowitz refused to disclose the identities of investors and the specific amount, a source from the technology newspaper Israel Calcalist revealed that the buy-in group was led by Robert Simonds, a Hollywood film producer and founder of STX Entertainment.
However, NSO insists the change of ownership does not affect Israel's legal control.
The headquarters and core operations remain in Israel, subject to full supervision within the countrys legal framework, Hershowitz said.
According to Calcalist, the new deal also means Omri Lavie, co-founder and CEO of NSO, will withdraw from the company. Lavie has not commented, while Simonds and STX Entertainment have declined to respond.
NSO Group has been the focus of a series of international investigations after Pegasus software was accused of being used by governments to track journalists, activists and politicians in many countries, from India, Morocco to Hungary and Mexico.
Although NSO has always maintained that its products are only for national security purposes, in 2021, the company was discovered to have targeted a number of US officials abroad, causing the US Commerce Department to include NSO in the List of restricted act transactions.
Since then, NSO has repeatedly sought to mobilize corridors to lift the ban, including a campaign in May 2025 through a company affiliated with the Trump administration.
Researcher John Scott-Railton from Citizen Lab (University of Toronto), who has been following NSO for a decade, expressed concern:
NSO has a long history of going against the interests of the United States. The control of the company by US investors raises questions about its responsibility and ethics in the technology sector.
Since its establishment in 2010, NSO has changed owners many times, when it was bought by Francisco Partners (USA) in 2014, then bought by Lavie and Shalev Hulio in 2019 with support from Novalpina Fund ( Europe), then by Berkeley Research Group (USA) in 2021. By 2023, Lavie had become the largest shareholder until the latest deal.
