Joby Aviation has filed a lawsuit against eVTOL competitor Archer Aviation in California state court, accusing the company of misusing confidential information obtained from a former Joby employee. The complaint, submitted Nov. 19 in the Superior Court of Santa Cruz County, alleges Archer gained an improper advantage during a business negotiation by drawing on Joby’s proprietary data.
The dispute centers on the July departure of George Kivork, a former member of Joby’s state and local policy team who later joined Archer. Joby claims Kivork sent internal documents to a personal email account before leaving and altered access permissions on hundreds of additional files so he could continue viewing them after his employment ended.
According to the lawsuit, Archer subsequently used information Kivork allegedly retained while speaking with a real estate developer that had an existing agreement with Joby. Joby asserts the developer indicated Archer appeared familiar with nonpublic aspects of that agreement, prompting the company to conclude the information originated with Kivork.
Joby is asking the court for unspecified damages as well as an injunction preventing Archer from using or benefitting from the disputed material.
Archer has rejected the allegations. “Joby alleges we used their trade secrets to win a ‘deal’ with a developer but the reality is that Archer has no deal with this developer and Mr. Kivork did not bring any Joby confidential information to Archer,” Eric Lentell, Archer’s chief legal and strategy officer, told Reuters. “Joby knows these facts and is now improperly attempting to achieve through bad faith litigation what it cannot accomplish through fair competition.”
This is not Archer’s first encounter with trade secret litigation. In 2021, Boeing-backed Wisk Aero sued Archer for alleged theft of proprietary information and patent infringement. Archer filed a countersuit that same year, accusing Wisk of pursuing a “false and malicious smear campaign,” and later brought a related claim against Boeing in 2022.
The companies ultimately reached a global settlement in 2023. Under that agreement, Archer selected Wisk as its exclusive provider of autonomous flight technology for future variants of Archer’s aircraft, while Boeing agreed to invest in Archer to support the integration of Wisk’s autonomy systems.
A hearing in the Joby-Archer case is scheduled for March 20, 2026.
