Joby Aviation CEO Sets Sights On Pentagon's $9.4 Billion Budget For Uncrewed Aircraft, Targets 500 Aircraft Per Year

Author: Badar Shaikh | August 07, 2025 01:22am

JoeBen Bevirt, CEO of Joby Aviation Inc. (NASDAQ:JOBY), says that the company sees a lot of potential in the Pentagon's $9.4 billion budget for uncrewed aircraft.

Significant Opportunity For Joby Aviation

"The DoD has requested $9.4 billion in the FY26 budget to advance uncrewed and remotely operated aircraft. And we see significant opportunity for Joby and our partners," Bevirt said during the company's second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

When asked about a realistic opportunity in the defense sector, the company said that it is a big moment for the future of military aviation as defense strategies look towards "cheaper, quieter and autonomous" solutions. 

"Recent conflicts have certainly shown that the sort of paradigm of large, expensive, crewed helicopters for a wide variety of missions may not be the right one on a go forward forward basis," Paul Sciarra, Joby's executive chairman, said. 

Joby Targets Producing 500 Aircraft Per Year

The CEO also highlighted Joby's target of scaling up production as the company announced expansion of its production facilities in Dayton, Ohio, as well as Marina in California.

"The expansion of our marina facility is an important step on the road to scale. It will double our production capacity to two dozen aircraft per year. And our Dayton facility is now coming online,"

Bevirt said that the expansions would help Joby "eventually produce 500 aircraft per year."

Partnerships With L3 Harris And Blade Air Mobility

The news comes as Joby announced a partnership with defense company L3 Harris Technologies Inc. (NYSE:LHX) to build hybrid military aircraft that will be capable of crewed as well as autonomous operations.

Elsewhere, the company recently acquired the passenger division of Blade Air Mobility Inc. (NASDAQ:BLDE) for $125 million.

Joby's Q2 Earnings Miss Estimates

The company's second-quarter earnings saw Joby report over 41 cents per share, missing the analyst estimates of 19 cents per share. The company reported a revenue of $15,000, missing the estimates of $43,000.

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Photo by T. Schneider via Shutterstock

Posted In: BLDE JOBY LHX