San Jose, California, April 26, 2026, 07:03 PDT
- BlackRock now holds a 6.9% passive stake in Archer Aviation, trimmed from the 8.1% disclosed back in January.
- Archer is pressing ahead with FAA certification efforts, eyeing passenger flights in 2026, as shown in the filing.
- Archer’s shareholders face another decision: whether to shift the company’s legal base from Delaware to Texas.
BlackRock cut its reported stake in Archer Aviation Inc. to 6.9%, according to a Friday securities filing, as the electric air taxi firm looks to leverage regulatory milestones into actual aircraft launches this year. As of March 31, the asset manager held beneficial ownership of 51,092,109 Class A shares and maintained sole voting rights for 50,103,375 shares.
The disclosure comes at a time when Archer faces steep expenses. The company is pouring money into developing its Midnight aircraft and chasing down FAA certification, with first passenger flights aimed for 2026. Revenue remains limited, but spending is running high.
That comes just before Archer’s annual meeting on June 26, when shareholders are set to vote on a plan to shift the company’s incorporation from Delaware to Texas. Founder and CEO Adam Goldstein urged investors to back the move, calling Texas the right legal base for Archer, which he said expects substantial long-term business there and currently has no operations in Delaware.
BlackRock’s updated filing shows it now holds fewer shares than it did in its Jan. 21 amendment, which had disclosed 52,989,964 shares, or 8.1% of the class, as of Dec. 31. The latest document indicates the position is held in the ordinary course of business, not for the purpose of changing or influencing control—standard language for a passive Schedule 13G holder.
Archer shares ended Friday at $5.70, slipping 1.2% from their prior finish and valuing the company near $3.77 billion. Joby Aviation, the main U.S. air-taxi rival in the public markets, was changing hands at a market cap close to $7.18 billion.
Archer describes Midnight as an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, or eVTOL—designed to rise like a helicopter, then transition to fixed-wing flight. Back in March, the company reported that the FAA had accepted all of Midnight’s “Means of Compliance,” the complete set of standards Archer must use to prove the aircraft satisfies airworthiness requirements. Archer Aviation
That move stops short of full certification. According to Archer, it should allow the company to wrap up the last of its certification plans and set up for Type Inspection Authorization. That’s the next phase where FAA-supervised flight tests could kick off as early as this year.
Back in March, the company announced that partners based in Texas, Florida, and New York landed spots in the White House’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program. Archer said it plans to team up with these partners to get local crews, infrastructure, and operational procedures in place for the first Midnight flights, targeting as early as the back half of 2026.
Rivals aren’t standing still. Last month, Joby began test flights with its first aircraft slated for certification, kicking off the Type Inspection Authorization process with federal regulators. FAA pilot evaluations are on the schedule for later this year, according to Reuters.
Archer finished 2025 holding roughly $1.96 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. Still, the company’s net loss for the year deepened to $618.2 million. For the first quarter, Archer is projecting an adjusted EBITDA loss between $160 million and $180 million. Adjusted EBITDA strips out interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and certain other items, according to the company’s metrics.
The schedule remains in flux. Archer, in its proxy materials, flagged a series of risks: certification hurdles, ramping up manufacturing, supplier reliability, airspace integration, vertiport infrastructure, municipal approvals, capital markets access, and the chance of aircraft incidents, to name a few. For a company aiming to establish a whole new aircraft class, those are far from trivial.
So far, BlackRock isn’t signaling any activist intentions. The filing just keeps the fund above the 5% disclosure mark—albeit with a smaller share count—while Archer approaches a year where investors may shift focus from press releases to what really happens in the air, on the regulatory front, and with the company’s cash burn.
