Name: This Company Is On a Mission to 'Transform Aviation,' CEO Says
Uploaded: 2026-06-04T19:31:00Z
Duration: 15 min 45 s
Description: Kyle Clark, CEO of BETA Technologies, spoke about the company's electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, aircraft in a conversation with Barron's editor at large Andy Serwer.

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Kyle Clark, CEO of BETA Technologies, spoke about the company's electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, aircraft in a conversation with Barron's editor at large Andy Serwer.

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This Company Is On a Mission to 'Transform Aviation,' CEO Says

There are so many people for so many years who told me, "You can't do that. That's crazy." My mother used to throw me out of Thanksgiving dinner, and be like, "Stop talking about that goddamn airplane thing."

With BETA, Kyle Clark is ensuring the next frontier for electric vehicles isn't the streets, it's the skies. BETA Technologies isn't in the business of making EVs for celebs to fly around. They're making aircraft to do the less flashy but plentiful work of logistics and medical transports, for now. BETA's aircraft are zero emission when flying, and the companies building them from a plant often cited as the largest net zero manufacturing facility east of the Mississippi River. The company passed 130,000 nautical miles flown, and is expanding its network of charging stations. It has 123 so far. I spoke to Clark about his journey from flight-obsessed kid to pro hockey player to founder and CEO. We also talked about range anxiety, BETA stock, and where the company is headed. All right, so tell us about your company. It is flying cars, electric helicopters. What is it? How does it work?

Yeah, so we definitely don't say it's flying cars. We're an electric-

Okay. I said that.

Yeah, no, I know. It's an interesting common misconception in the industry that the right place to start is with flying in what they call urban air mobility, in and out of cities with electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. And it's a great future vision, but our strategy of BETA is significantly different. It's a stepwise approach into the market that starts with medical transports, then cargo and logistics, then military, and then passenger. And that's how we've entered. So our first customer was United Therapeutics, who does artificial organs.

So there are other players in this space, and I take it maybe they're focusing on passengers, and tell us about the competitive set.

Yeah, so there's three very good companies out in Silicon Valley. They kind of were the product of this kind of Uber, white paper type idea of air taxis. And there's one company out of Brazil called Eve that was founded by Embraer, the large aerospace company. And then we're up in Vermont like really far away from that. And we kind of operate in this corridor of relative indifference in the industry, where everybody's chasing that dream of saving a billion people an hour a day where we said, "You know what, nobody's saved one person one hour a day. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna start with a place that needs this technology." Hospitals have helipads, airports are where the organs land. Let's connect those two. Let's connect the distribution and fulfillment centers of Amazon and UPS and FedEx, and then we're gonna start carrying passengers. So although we kind of get lumped together with other folks in the industry, our market injury strategy is wildly different. It's like, you know, if you walk into a hotel lobby and you say, "I gotta get to the second floor to go to the ball," you can either take one step at a time, or you can try to jump to the second floor in one jump. And I would contend that that stepwise approach of entering in with an airplane in these applications that need doing today, then going to VTOL, and then going to passenger is a much more logical approach. So, you know, to sum it up, we do have competitors and we get lumped together with them, but our strategy and our technical application of electric aviation is wildly different.

So then aren't you competing, Kyle, against drones, and certainly existing helicopters? So why are you better than existing helicopters that are transporting organs and better than drones that maybe can do that too, or seek to do that?

Yeah, great question, so existing helicopters, one of the biggest limitations when doing high criticality transfers is they are not all weather-capable. Hospitals, you know, you don't get to say I'm not gonna deliver that organ 'cause there's snow, sleet, rain outside. Helicopters can't handle icing very well. So we've developed an instrument flight rules-capable inadvertent icing encounter and future de-iced aircraft, so you can fly in all weather. That's one big, big difference. But in the other applications for cargo, it's the cost. People don't use helicopters to transport packages for UPS. The cost is way too high. So when we, like we just did the first passenger flights into JFK on an electric aircraft ever, and the thing that was captivating to people was not the fact that we had built a beautiful new machine, and it was quiet and efficient, and it moved people. It was the fact that it costs $7 of electricity to fly from the Hamptons to JFK, $7. When you reduce the cost of operation, the recurring cost of operation by this massive amount, the number of applications goes way up. And so we gotta have an entry point, but we gotta have a really large market to follow, and that's what the cost reduction does.

Where are you in this continuum? I mean, you've started to do this, XYZ, like where are you gonna be in two years? What's the narrative?

Yeah, so it's interesting. A year and a half ago, I would say we're all tracking towards certification, FAA certification, but that's no longer the case. It used to be a binary like demarcation, pre-certified and post certified. But what happened with the recent executive orders from the Trump administration and the executive orders of the military called Unleashing American Drone Dominance is that the floodgates were kicked open, and they said, "You can start four revenue applications before you're certified through this," something called the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program. Department of Transportation, the FAA, they did this big solicitation, and BETA was named on seven out of the eight winning applications to start operations before certification, so we're starting in like September.

Range anxiety has been a hurdle in the adoption of electric cars, but over time, that fear has faded as EVs' range increased, more electric charging stations were built, and GPS maps expanded to show their locations. In the sky, which is newer territory, an electric aircraft needs to stay aloft carrying a battery that weighs what it weighs, whether it's charged or not. So what about range anxiety, and like, oops, the battery failed? I mean, the anxieties of electric flight.

Yeah, great question. I mean, first of all, like you don't operate an airplane the way you operate a car. You're not like looking at the fuel gauge in an airplane. Everything is planned, everything is known. You don't take off without proper reserves. That's all good. So you never get to the, oops, I don't have enough energy left. Now range anxiety is a real thing. We set the world record for the longest electric flights, battery electric flights ever, 336 nautical miles. And I flew. I sat in Pilot Sea for three hours. Nobody wants to be in a little plane for three hours, right? You're well beyond the range necessary to make it commercially viable aircraft. The average feeder fleet aircraft flying for UPS is about 115 nautical miles. We're already three times the length that they need. So you don't say, "Well, do you have enough range?" No. Do you have enough payload and capacity? So we built an airplane that has about the same capacity as a sprinter van. That's a good, you know, three pallets of stuff go in there in the back, plus five or four if it's unmanned. And so once you meet the range requirement, which we have, we proved it, now it's around pay loading capacity and speed. So we also actually hold the world speed record for the fastest electric airplanes, both on the short course and the long course, and the payload records.

Which are?

So about 150 knots average on a long course.

What's knots versus MPH?

1.15, so you're about 180, 175 miles an hour, which, you know, the efficiency of an airplane changes with its speed. So you stay on the most efficient kind of corner, but it's way faster than driving, and you can go in a straight line.

How long does it take to charge one of these babies?

Yeah, that's a great question. It's about a third as long as however long you fly. So if you fly for an hour, 20 minutes. Fly for three hours, it's one hour of recharge. It is not exactly true, though, because if you charge in the center section of the battery, let's say you charge from 25% state of charge to 90%, it's really fast, and then it takes just as long to go from 90% to a hundred percent, so it's nonlinear. So if you're doing high cadence operations like Hoboken to New York City, you would stay in that middle region, and you'd charge really fast.

Would it really make sense to fly from Hoboken to New York City?

I don't know. Why are we late today? I mean, we were sitting in traffic, right?

Okay.

It all depends on the impediments to ground travel, right?

But are there gonna be too many of these things flying around in the air? I mean, the FAA has gotta figure this out. Right?

Well, it's interesting. I was just with the NASA folks yesterday, and they're working on reduced terminal separation, which means pack more into the space. It's, you know, a country like Ireland, you know, they have one of the most lucrative airspace management strategies where they see the air above Ireland as federally navigable airways that are a national asset. That's really kind of an interesting way to think about this thing. And you know, with our current administration, they're thinking much more businesslike. We don't utilize our airspace very well. Most of our traffic goes through seven key airports, and they are a log jam. We have 4,300 viable airports in this country for commercial use. We barely use 'em. Right? And I flew down here last night, I fly all the time. I fly to work every day. It's like there's no traffic. It's beautiful, and everybody's crawling along on the ground underneath you. So yes is the answer. Not everywhere. New York City's gonna be tough.

Right, right. It's always, yeah, I mean, just, right.

It's always gonna be tough.

It's an exception.

We're gonna increase that velocity. But think of everybody else in the country.

What about charging systems? We talked about charging these vehicles. What do you call them?

So there's eVTOLs.

eVTOLs, right.

Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft, but really, we make all types of electric airplanes.

Okay, all right. So you're electric airplanes. Will you have to have a charging system a la electric cars, EVs?

Absolutely, so at BETA, we actually have the only certified charging system in existence for these type of vehicles. And we have covered the East Coast with these things from Vermont down to Florida.

How many?

We have, I forget the number exactly, but it's about 120 different airports with charging systems either installed or being installed. And then we probably have close to 170 permits in place. The permits are the equivalent of a real estate land grab, because you get the power company's interconnection, and so I actually, it's interesting you bring that up, 'cause I would venture to say it's a toss up right now, whether our charging network, which is the largest in existence by far, and we won Abu Dhabi, we just won Florida, another 17 sites in Florida. It's really amazing how this has grown. That might be worth more than the aerospace company, fast forward to 10 years, because we'll own the flow of energy into the future of aerospace.

BETA had an initial public offering last fall, and its stock is down to about half of its IPO price with its market capped down to around $4 billion. Those numbers look not atypical for a startup tech company at this point. BETA's revenue growth is happening alongside an expanding net loss that passed $122 million in the first quarter. The company could be at a major inflection point. Investors can buy the dip or wait for more milestones. BETA has a commercial aircraft backlog approaching $4 billion, which covers nearly 1000 aircraft on order. Is this a good investment? Why should investors buy your stock?

Yeah, look, we IPO, we're a controlled company. We have a long view. Our long onlies have held tight. There's been a little bit of trade-off, risk off by the hedge funds. But the reality is, is that we didn't pretend, nor did I tell anybody that we were gonna, all of a sudden, be a flash in the pan, the next Snapchat. This is something I've been working, this was my senior thesis in college, working on this for a while. We're gonna make the right decision to build an enduring business. And so we IPOd, you know, between the pre-IPO and the IPO, we got about $1.8 billion, $1.9 billion of cash. It was a meaningful amount of cash, and we knew that we have a long road in front of us, and we've done exactly what I told the investors we were gonna do. We beat earnings in every quarter that we've reported on. We hit our milestones that we wanted to hit. We actually exceeded and accelerated several programs, and what the stock does week to week or month to month, I don't wanna say it's no concern of mine, but it's no concern for the mission we're on, which is to transform aviation. So should people, if they're patient, if they're thoughtful, and if they are looking for a company that is building the foundation of the house before they build the facade, that's us. If you're looking for a facade builder, and you're gonna flip it, go buy a different stock. But if you're looking to bet on a highly technical competent team that has set the most important world records, has core technology, highly vertically integrated, then the answer to your question would be yes, you're in the right place.

Clark is the rare CEO who used to play professional hockey. At Harvard, he studied Material Science and Engineering while playing for the Harvard Crimson hockey team. In college, he attracted the attention of the NHL, and was drafted by the Washington Capitals. He left Harvard early to turn pro, playing two seasons in the minor leagues before returning to Harvard to finish his degree. His senior thesis, titled "BETA Air," was recognized as Harvard's Paper of the Year, and laid the groundwork for the company. Tell us about this dream of yours and where it comes from.

Yeah, I mean, look, aviation is magical. It is the most amazing thing to get in a machine that you designed and fly in three dimensions through space. I would love to bring you up flying, and electric aviation, you take, in our case, the prop. You put it 22 feet behind you, you have a silent motor, beautiful visibility, and the visceral connection you have to flying through the air quietly and simply in a machine that is exploiting and working with Mother Nature and physics to be this beautiful bird-like machine. It's an amazing feeling, and to do that alongside a bunch of people who just care about the same things as you, technology, sustainability, and aviation, and go and do something that people thought was impossible. There are so many people for so many years who told me, "You can't do that. That's crazy." My mother used to throw me out of Thanksgiving dinner, and be like, "Stop talking about that goddamn airplane thing." It was a passion, and it always has been, and I fly all kinds of aircraft, gliders, helicopters. Whatever I can fly, I fly. This is the most beautiful flying machine in the world. It is awesome, so like to have something that I've been dreaming about for so long, working on, not just dreaming about it, that now we have this team of 1200 people, the right funding, going out, and proving the physics work is just such an awesome thing. I get a chill talking about it right now.