Archer Aviation CEO and co-founder Adam Goldstein joins CNBC’s Morgan Brennan at the UP. Summit in Bentonville, AR to discuss the rollout of electric air taxis worldwide. Goldstein breaks down Archer’s new partnership in Japan, the impact of U.S. regulation and Trump’s recent executive order and how the company plans to showcase its aircraft at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/42d859g
» Subscribe to CNBC TV: https://cnb.cx/SubscribeCNBCtelevision
» Subscribe to CNBC: https://cnb.cx/SubscribeCNBC
» Watch CNBC...
Questions asked in this interview
6
1:26How meaningful was that executive order at Archer?
2:33When does the time come, and maybe I'm jumping way ahead of the rest of this conversation here, that we actually start seeing this autonomously?
4:02Will you be actually, like does that mean you're rolling out service and you'll be, I guess, and I guess just as importantly what does that mean in terms of a business model?
5:22How do you think about the competitive landscape?
6:21So how do you see this ecosystem evolving then?
Yeah. So the aircrafts have gotten to a point where they've become quite mature and now I think the world is recognizing this and so a lot of the regulations in place and now you're starting to see different countries get involved and most recently at Osaka we announced a deal with the city and our partnership which is called Soral which is a joint venture with Japan Airlines and Sumitomo. How does it speak to the rollout as we see it globally and the countries that are leaning in and adopting the technology the fastest?
Well, the FAA created the category and I think much of the world is watching what happens in America and how the FAA really treats this, but at the same time a lot of the other countries want to be involved and they want to be leaning forward in bringing advanced air mobility to market. And so on one hand, you're kind of watching and seeing what the FAA is doing. On the other hand, they also want to put the infrastructure in place and really start to get the cities ready to go. So, President Trump announced the executive order which really helped fast-track a lot of the process in the US and I think that's going to lead to more and more of these countries getting involved.
Oh, it was a really big deal and it was especially a big deal because we need a way to really centralize timelines and dates. So what they did was really create a pathway for us to get going in the US. So there's a timeline and the goal is for next summer we'll start flying the aircrafts in the US in these different cities, kind of point-to-point routes, very high margins of safety, and really start to show the country, gain community acceptance on what these aircrafts can do.
Yes. So we fly the aircrafts nearly every day in California. We started flying in Abu Dhabi and I think you'll see more of that as the year progresses.
Yeah. So we've been flying the aircrafts further and further and then higher and higher. So actually we recently just hit 10,000 feet which is actually really high for these aircrafts. They're non-pressurized and so we like to show what these aircrafts can do, what they're capable of, but on an everyday use they'll really be flying closer to 500 feet to 1,500 feet off the ground where helicopters fly. But the aircrafts are quite capable.
And there will be pilots in the aircraft. When does the time come, and maybe I'm jumping way ahead of the rest of this conversation here, that we actually start seeing this autonomously?
Well, the autonomy actually works today and so we fly the aircrafts autonomously all the time. It's more of the world being ready for that, consumers accepting that, the regulation being in place, and the infrastructure being in place. So for example, if you're flying an autonomous aircraft today and air traffic control wants to reroute you, who are they talking to? How does that work? What are the rules behind that? If you have to land in some type of emergency sense, how does that work with the ground-based infrastructure? So there's a lot of real-world issues that we have to go solve, but the pure technology side is actually fairly evolved.
Goldstein, A. (2025, October 3). Archer Aviation CEO on new partnership in Japan, LA28 Olympics and the FAA [Interview transcript]. CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1165509/
MLA
Adam Goldstein. "Archer Aviation CEO on new partnership in Japan, LA28 Olympics and the FAA." CNBC Television, 3 Oct. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1165509/.
BibTeX
@misc{goldstein2025_1165509,
author = {Adam Goldstein},
title = {Archer Aviation CEO on new partnership in Japan, LA28 Olympics and the FAA},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {oct},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1165509/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
