Chips & Hardware
Larry Page's flying car company Pivotal loses its CEO
Ken Karklin has stepped down after more than four years as CEO of Pivotal, the Larry Page-backed eVTOL company, with board member Mike Ross taking over on an interim basis.
The CEO of flying car company Pivotal, backed by Larry Page, has left the company. Ken Karklin, who served as Pivotal’s CEO for more than four years, left the role this week, according to a press release. Pivotal said Karklin is “pursuing new endeavors” but didn’t offer further detail on his departure from the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) firm.
“Leading Pivotal has been the privilege of my career. Together, we’ve moved beyond the promise of light eVTOL and proved it out in practice,” Karklin said in a statement. “This industry has moved past prototypes and press releases; it’s now operating in the real world, under real constraints, with real consequences for the future of Advanced Air Mobility.” Karklin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Karklin will be replaced on an interim basis by Mike Ross, an aviation executive who joined Pivotal’s board of directors in November 2025. “Ken’s leadership over the past four years has been instrumental in bringing Pivotal to where it is today. Our team, our priorities, and our roadmap remain steady through this transition,” Ross said in a statement.
Karklin’s departure comes two years after Pivotal started selling Helix, its first lightweight electric personal aircraft. The single-seat aircraft doesn’t require a pilot’s license to fly and starts at around $200,000. Pivotal has also spent years developing BlackFly, an aircraft aimed at defense and first-responder use cases; last month, BlackFly was used to respond to an emergency in North Carolina for the first time, and the company says it beat a parallel ambulance response by 20 minutes. BlackFly has flown more than 10,000 times, according to Pivotal, which is also one of several companies selected for the Federal Aviation Administration’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, created to increase testing of these aircraft around the country.
Why it matters
A leadership change at a company Pivotal itself says has moved from prototypes to real-world eVTOL operations is a test of whether Advanced Air Mobility’s commercial phase can survive turnover at the top without losing momentum.