Short seller: Archer Aviation (ACHR) 'continues to mislead investors'

Updated on: February 11, 2026 9:06 AM
ACHR stocks

Short seller Culper Research said on Tuesday in a post on X that it is shorting Archer Aviation Inc. (ACHR), alleging that the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) manufacturer "continues to mislead investors."

This is the second time that Culper has shorted Archer.

Last time, it alleged "that over the past 12 months, Archer has systematically misled, deceived, or outright lied to investors about virtually every supposed milestone related to its development and testing of its eVTOL aircraft, Midnight."

In its post on X, Culper pointed to the company's third-quarter earnings call in November in which Archer CEO Adam Goldstein said that it was "nearing completion of Midnight's piloted CTOL (conventional takeoff and landing) test campaign" and that the "next test phase with Midnight will be piloted eVTOL."

In the same earnings call, Thomas Paul Muniz, chief technology officer for Archer, said the company was "actually getting close to starting our first TIA campaign with the FAA and that could happen as soon as the end of this year."

TIA stands for Type Inspection Authorization and is a required phase for the certification process of an aircraft with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

However, Culper said that "flight logs suggest $ACHR has not engaged in a single ground or air test for the past 3 months."

“Further, $ACHR doesn't appear to have obtained an airworthiness certificate for N704AX - they couldn't fly it even if they wanted to,” the firm said.

Culper also questions where the finished aircraft fleets are when Archer "claimed in May 2025 that it was assembling ‘multiple aircraft’ scheduled for piloted testing later in 2025" and then in August said that it had six more in production, with "3 of those in final assembly."

To further drive home its point, the short seller posted a comment left by an employee in October on the Glassdoor employment website.

The person said that Archer "straight up misleads candidates on how far along the company is when they haven't even finalized the aircraft design."

Culper also points to an interview with Fox Business that Goldstein gave last week where he said that "starting this year, you’ll be able to see some of these aircraft flying in and around some of the biggest cities in America."

But Culper claims to "have heard that in closed-door meetings, $ACHR CEO Goldstein has told certain institutional investors that $ACHR now expects FAA certification in 2028, at best, as Midnight requires substantial re-designs."

“Archer has claimed for at least the past 9 months that the Company has multiple aircraft in ‘final assembly,’” the firm said in its post. “The Company has produced zero aircraft. Where are they?”

Archer has yet to respond to Culper's short report publicly.

It remains to be seen how far along Archer is in its flight plans for the US, but it signed an agreement in December with the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), Saudi Arabia's national aviation regulator, to "create a regulatory pathway" that will allow the company to deploy VTOL aircraft in the Kingdom.

It's unclear how soon an air taxi program in Saudi Arabia might be launched.

Both Archer and its VTOL rival Joby Aviation (JOBY) are also seeking to join the US government's Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), which will include at least five pilot projects and will run for three years after the first project becomes operational.

Joby sued Archer in November, accusing the latter of "corporate espionage" that it said was "planned and premeditated." The complaint stems from Archer's hiring of George Kivork, the former US state and local policy lead for Joby.

Archer's stock is down 29.6% over the past year.

Share
Post
Share
Share
Share