Archer Aviation CEO Adam Goldstein discusses pushback and lawsuits from legacy aerospace incumbents when Archer announced its public listing.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Goldstein: Competitor weaponized the government by framing Archer engineer as a spy
“If, in America, I didn't think it was possible for a competitor to weaponize the government to come after you. And we saw that. It was unbelievable. It was you know, one of my engineers was set up to look like he was like a Chinese spy, and it was totally fake…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Goldstein: Buttigieg refused meetings, but Sean Duffy meets with Archer monthly
“I literally could not get a meeting with Secretary Pete Buttigieg. I couldn't do it. He just wouldn't take the meeting. And so, I don't know if it just wasn't important to him or whatever his reasons were, but as soon as the new administration, the administrat…”
Insight
Goldstein: Full-stack eVTOL models are too operationally complex to be profitable
“So the challenge with being an OEM, and an operator, and, a demand aggregator, an infrastructure player, you know, a pilot training company, a maintenance company, that's a lot of stuff to do at once. It's very hard to actually build a real business that will …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Goldstein: Scaled air taxi networks will take 10 to 20 years
“So air taxi will happen over time. It's not gonna happen year one. It's probably not gonna happen year five, but it will happen by year 10, and it will certainly be scaled by year 20.”
Assertion Partly supported
Archer reached piloted flight milestones in half the time of competitors
“And don't forget, we've done this in half the time as our competitors have done this. And so we have moved at incredible speeds. And when you look at it, when you kind of zoom in, it looks like we're at the same space, maybe we're ahead. But if you like zoom o…”
Assertion Contradicted
Archer is the only major eVTOL manufacturer selling directly to airlines
“We're kind of the only game in town. Our competitor really wants to operate. And so if you want to buy aircraft, we're kind of the only game in town to really do that from.”