G42—G42's history with Emirati spyware firm DarkMatter and ties to Chinese entity-listed firms prompted congressional national-security warnings over its Microsoft partnership

G42 CEO Peng Xiao previously held leadership positions at Pegasus, a subsidiary of Emirati company DarkMatter -- a corporate affiliate of G42 that developed spyware and surveillance tools reportedly used to target dissidents, journalists, politicians, and U.S. companies (documented by a 2019 Reuters investigation into the 'Project Raven' surveillance program). The U.S. State Department later fined former American DarkMatter employees for violations of the Arms Export Control Act. G42 has also maintained relationships with Chinese firms including Huawei and BGI Group (the genomics company placed on the U.S. Commerce Department's Entity List in March 2023 over its role supporting PRC surveillance and alleged complicity in Xinjiang human-rights abuses). These ties drew sustained scrutiny as Microsoft built a multi-billion-dollar AI partnership with G42: in January 2024 the New York Times reported the arrangement was 'under scrutiny,' and in July 2024 the House Select Committee on the CCP and House Foreign Affairs Committee sent a joint letter to the White House warning that the deal involved 'unprecedented transfer of highly sensitive, U.S.-origin technology' to a firm with unresolved ties to PRC military-civil fusion and human-rights-abuse-linked entities, urging robust national-security guardrails before any further expansion (Phase 2) of the partnership. As of the letters, G42 and DarkMatter had not been added to the Commerce Department's Entity List despite the requests.