Culper Research has claimed that Archer Aviation has “systematically misled, deceived, or outright lied” to investors about its progress related to developing its electric vehicle takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, Midnight.
On May 20, 2025, Culper Research, which was founded by Christian Lamarco, released a report with several claims including that Archer Aviation’s “continued promotion of near-term commercialization is not only premature, but reckless”.
In response to the claims, Archer Aviation told Seeking Alpha: “Christian Lamarco has a reputation for ‘shorting and distorting’ various stocks. Culper is not a credible research institution. Archer has attracted significant attention due to its recent momentum and positive high-profile news. His claims are baseless.”
The CEO of Archer, Adam Goldstein, recently guested on US TV talk show ‘The Tonight Show’, hosted by Jimmy Fallon to talk about air taxis and unveil a partnership with the LA28 Olympics.
In a social media post, Culper Research responded to the appearance and wrote: “Goldstein also claims $ACHR’s 2028 Olympics sponsorship shows the FAA is ‘confident Archer is the right partner’.”
However, many of Culper Research’s recent claims revolve around Archer completing transition flights and that the developer “has never once provided footage of true FAA-compliant transition”.
According to Culper Research, “investigators camped across” Archer sites after the developer allegedly said that it would “fly next week”.
“They [investigators] saw $ACHR do a single round of low-speed ground runs over the past 8 days. The aircraft was nowhere close to flying,” claimed Culper Research.
AeroTime has contacted Archer Aviation for comment.
2 comments
Archer Aviation boss seems to be resorting to attacking the messenger rather than addressing the criticisms, which are pretty damning. And the allegations are all checkable – they are factual observations not wild unfounded opinions.
The aircraft has all the passengers well ahead of the centre of gravity position for stability around 30% of wing chord so that if flown empty it will be too tail heavy which may account for their being unable to shut down the rear propellers otherwise it is just too big and heavy for just four passengers and costs way too much to be economic.