Electric air taxi maker Archer responds to Joby with countersuit alleging hidden Chinese ties

Electric taxi developer Archer Aviation responded to a lawsuit Monday with counterclaims alleging that rival Joby Aviation defrauded the U.S. government and its competitors by falsely representing itself as an American-made company.

The countersuit, filed in federal court, alleges that Gobi relied on a Chinese manufacturing subsidiary to obtain critical components from Chinese suppliers with the support of the Chinese government. Archer also alleges that Jobe tried to hide his “deep ties” to China by fraudulently misclassifying thousands of pounds of aircraft materials of Chinese origin as consumer goods – describing them as hair clips, socks and photo albums – to evade US tariffs and foreign influence checks.

Joby was founded in 2009 in Santa Cruz, California, where it maintains its headquarters. The company also has facilities in several other U.S. cities and operates internationally in Germany, Austria, Costa Rica and Shenzhen, China, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Joby’s attorney, Alex Spiro, said in an email statement that the company “does not respond to this nonsense.”

“Archer’s ongoing legal issues and its struggling business operations have left it no choice but to resort to nonsensical and invented theories,” Spiro said. “We will see them in court.”

The countersuit comes four months after Joby filed a lawsuit against Archer over allegations of theft of trade secrets. In that lawsuit filed in November in California Superior Court in Santa Cruz County, Jobe alleges that a former Jobe employee, George Kevork, took trade secrets with him when he left to join Archer, which she then used.

Both Joby and Archer, based in San Jose, Calif., went public in 2021 through mergers with SPACs. Competitors seek similar and often overlapping markets. Both are developing electric air taxis as well as pursuing defense applications for their technology.

The timing of Archer’s countersuit is notable, particularly the complaint’s language referencing a recent executive order issued by President Trump. This executive order directed the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration to launch a pilot program to accelerate the development and commercialization of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft. The two companies recently applied to participate in this program, formerly known as the Advanced Air Mobility and Integrated Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Pilot Program.

The complaint alleges that Joby, which drapes itself in the American flag and markets its drones as “committed to American innovation,” has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from the U.S. government, including U.S. Air Force contracts, and has positioned itself as a key player in President Trump’s efforts to accelerate air taxi integration in the United States under his 2025 Executive Order “Unleashing America’s Drone Dominance.”

The Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday approved eight proposals for the pilot program covering 26 states. Archer got approval to participate in three of them, while Joby got five of them.