Boeing has assumed full ownership of eVTOL aircraft developer Wisk Aero, which had been run as a joint venture with Kitty Hawk, an advanced mobility startup formed by Google co-founder Larry Page and Google executive Sebastian Thrun.
Brian Yutko, Chief Executive of Wisk announced the change of ownership at a media briefing in South Carolina on May 31. He did not give any details about financial terms for the transaction between Boeing and its former partners.
Kitty Hawk closed down its operations in September 2022. The company was working on the Heaviside autonomous eVTOL vehicle at that time. However, this move did not impact its ownership and that Kitty Hawk’s backers would remain investors in its plans to bring a four-seat, passenger-carrying autonomous eVTOL vehicle to market later in this decade, Wisk claimed.
Wisk is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Boeing group and will continue to operate as an independent company with oversight by the Boeing board. Boeing had already invested $450 million into Wisk as a lead into advance air mobility sector.