Blackwater Rebrands as Xe Services to Distance from Nisour Square Massacre and Iraq War Crimes

Blackwater Worldwide officially changed its name to Xe Services LLC in a strategic rebranding effort to distance the company from its toxic reputation following the 2007 Nisour Square massacre, congressional investigations documenting 195 shooting incidents in Iraq, and widespread accusations of war crimes and contractor impunity. The name change represented a systematic attempt to escape accountability through corporate identity transformation while maintaining the same ownership, leadership, and operational practices.

The rebranding occurred as Blackwater faced multiple criminal investigations, civil lawsuits from victims’ families, and intense public scrutiny over its role in Iraq. Four Blackwater contractors had been charged with manslaughter for the Nisour Square killings, and congressional testimony had exposed that Blackwater personnel fired first in 84% of shooting incidents. The State Department declined to renew Blackwater’s Iraq security contract worth $200 million, and the company faced potential debarment from federal contracting.

Erik Prince remained owner and chairman of the renamed entity, with no changes to core management or operational structure. The company retained the same training facilities in North Carolina, the same contractor personnel, and the same business model of providing armed security and paramilitary services to government agencies. The Xe Services name—chosen to be deliberately opaque and meaningless—allowed the company to bid on new government contracts without the immediate association with the Blackwater brand’s documented history of civilian killings and accountability failures.

The transformation demonstrated how private military corporations could use corporate restructuring to evade consequences for systematic violence and legal violations. While the Blackwater name became synonymous with contractor impunity and excessive force, Xe Services could present itself as a “new” entity despite identical ownership and practices. This established a template that Prince would employ repeatedly: when a corporate entity became too controversial, simply rebrand under a new name while maintaining the same profitable government contracts and operational methods that generated the original controversies.

The rebranding ultimately failed to resolve Blackwater’s legal and reputational problems, but successfully delayed accountability and allowed continued operations under government contract during the transition period. The strategy proved that corporate form could be manipulated to frustrate oversight, investigation, and enforcement actions that would be impossible for government agencies or uniformed military forces to evade through simple name changes.