IonQ has disputed claims from a short seller who has accused the US quantum computing firm of misleading investors about the state of the company’s finances.

In a report published earlier this week, Wolfpack Research has alleged that IonQ lost its funding for “vital Pentagon contracts that provided up to 86 percent of IonQ’s revenue from 2022-2024,” leaving a $54.6 million “black hole” in the company’s anticipated quantum computing revenues.

Wolfpack went on to claim that the Pentagon never requested funding for these contracts, and was instead directed to make them via “secretive 'backdoor earmarks' by politicians friendly to IonQ who are now out of power.”

In 2026, funding for the Pentagon contract was missing from the federal budget for the second year in a row, Wolfpack said, adding that IonQ’s management has never publicly discussed the loss of funding for said contracts, and has instead “backfilled the missing revenues by acquiring subpar non-quantum computing companies, all while diluting investors and dumping enormous amounts of stock.”

In January 2026, IonQ acquired chipmaker SkyWater Technology for $1.8 billion. The acquisition was the fourth undertaken by the company since mid-2025, with IonQ completing its purchase of photonic interconnect and quantum memory company Lightsynq in June of last year, following its purchase of Capella Space the month prior. In September 2025, IonQ completed its acquisition of Oxford Ionics for $1.08bn.

When the FY25 budget was passed in mid-March last year, and IonQ lost its funding for the Pentagon contracts, Wolfpack said the company did not publicly disclose this loss until almost a week later. By March 14, when the Senate approved the 2025 budget, Wolfpack alleged eight IonQ insiders had “sold or authorized the sale of $396.6 million in stock with newly created 10b5-1 plans.” This includes former Ion! CEO Peter Chapman, who sold $37.5 million in his “first ever discretionary sale” on March 11, two weeks after resigning his position as chief executive.

The 10b5-1 rule allows company insiders to make a predetermined plan for trading company stocks that complies with insider trading laws while reducing accusations of insider trading.

Wolfpack also accused IonQ of engaging in “some serious shenanigans” with regards to its $22m deal to build a quantum innovation center with EPB Chattanooga. The deal, which IonQ described as a sale, was reportedly fronted by the quantum company for around $15m, according to a local news report from the time.

Wolfpack further alleged that IonQ was only able to advance to the second stage of the United States government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI) due to its purchase of Oxford Ionics, a company that was participating in Stage A of the initiative alongside IonQ prior to the acquisition.

In a statement to Fortune, IonQ said: “[The Wolfpack Research report] contains false, misleading, and unsubstantiated claims from a short-seller that is attempting to profit by driving down the price of IonQ shares. The report has substantial misrepresentations as to IonQ’s government relationships, business strategy, and financial sustainability. IonQ is continuing to advance our position as the world’s leading quantum company. We have a clear path to shareholder value creation, and our recent agreement to acquire SkyWater Technology is evidence that IonQ is a trusted ecosystem partner to the US government, allied nations, and industry collaborators.”

DCD has reached out to IonQ for comment.

This is not the first time IonQ has been the target of short sellers. In 2022, Scorpian Capital alleged that the company’s technology was “a hoax,” although the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ultimately deemed Scorpian’s report was not reliable.

In March 2025, Kerrisdale Capital published a report labeling the company as “hype,” adding that it believed that “IonQ is far from being on the verge of a new era of commercial success with its limited, error-prone systems,” and was instead seducing customers with its “claimed ‘history of delivering on technical and commercial milestones.’”

It should be noted that if Wolfpack is successful in shorting IonQ’s stock, it would gain financially from the allegations made in the report.

In October 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US government was considering taking equity stakes in quantum computing companies in exchange for federal funding. IonQ was one such company that was reportedly engaged in such talks; however, at the time, it was noted that the current US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Steve Feinberg, founded and was CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, a hedge fund that purchased 2.4 million shares in IonQ in June 2025, now worth approximately $134m.

In September 2025, IonQ appointed General John W. "Jay" Raymond, the senior managing director of Cerberus Capital Management, to its board of directors. That same month, the quantum computing company launched IonQ Federal in an effort to integrate “IonQ’s proprietary technologies to serve the US government and its allies.”

These events were not included in Wolfpack’s report.