Flying Taxi CEO Is Billionaire Again After Stocks Rally All-Time High

Four years after a much-hyped SPAC deal followed by a swift collapse, shares of flying taxi company Joby Aviation Inc. have rallied to an all-time high, lifting the value of its founder's stake to more than $1 billion.

Chief Executive Officer JoeBen Bevirt, 51, owns a 12% stake in the air-mobility company worth $1.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The value of his holding has more than doubled since April 8, when the stock hit its low for the year. The shares were up 10% to $13.92 at 2:24 p.m. in New York trading.

A spokesperson for Santa Cruz, California-based Joby Aviation declined to comment on Bevirt's net worth or the company's performance.

Interest in Joby Aviation's eVTOL aircraft - shorthand for electric vertical takeoff and landing - has surged since the company completed a piloted test flight last month in Dubai. That followed President Donald Trump signing an executive order establishing a federal pilot program for the technology amid increased attention for the industry from the defense sector.

"The administration has made air taxis a very high priority," Bevirt said in a March 17 interview with Bloomberg Television. "We're just thrilled to be seeing such incredible momentum on the DoD side for this industry."

Bevirt's wealth briefly climbed above $1 billion immediately after Joby Aviation's public debut via a special purpose acquisition company in August 2021, as investors bid up the share price. By the end of that year, the company's stock had tumbled more than 45% from its opening day high.

At the time it went public, Joby Aviation didn't have a completed product, instead hoping investors would buy into its promise of operating a commercial fleet of flying taxis by 2024. That fleet is still in the future - as is its first paying customer - but a flurry of good news has spurred the recent rally. 

Fellow electric-aircraft maker Archer Aviation Inc. in June predicted that defense contracts could become the biggest part of its business. And Joby Aviation announced Tuesday that it planned to double production capacity at its main plant.

The company says that its electric aircraft, which take off and land vertically and don't require a runway, are 100 times quieter than a helicopter and can travel at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. Joby Aviation plans to launch flights from lower Manhattan to John F. Kennedy International Airport, which will take just seven minutes and be cost competitive with an Uber Black, Bevirt said in a May 2024 interview with Bloomberg.

Joby Aviation is the fourth company Bevirt founded after earning mechanical engineering degrees from University of California, Davis and Stanford. His previous ventures included Velocity11, a maker of robotic laboratory systems, and Joby Inc., which manufactures the GorillaPod camera tripod.

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