Joby Aviation stock keeps rising on news that it will ‘explore opportunities’ to supply flying taxis to Saudi Arabia

Shares in Joby Aviation, Inc. (NYSE: JOBY) jumped yesterday after the air taxi company announced a potential deal with the Saudi Arabia-based Abdul Latif Jameel. The deal could lead to Joby supplying up to 200 of its eVTOL aircraft. Here’s what to know about the potential and its effect on Joby’s stock price.

What is Joby?

Joby Aviation, better known as Joby, is a Santa Cruz-headquartered aviation company that is developing a fleet of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles—in other words, flying taxis.

Joby was founded in 2009 and went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021 via a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Prior to its NYSE debut, Joby was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies for 2021.

While the company is developing flying taxi vehicles, one of its primary aims is to become a service—an Uber of the skies, so to speak.

Because of its relatively small market cap of around $6.7 billion and interesting futuristic product (a flying rideshare service!), Joby’s stock is somewhat popular with investors who lean more toward dabbling in meme stocks and small-cap stocks that have potential to see sky-high returns if their products eventually take off (no pun intended).

Joby says it currently has “strategic partnerships” with Toyota, Delta, and Uber, and it employs more than 1,700 engineers. For its Q1 2025, which ended March 31, Joby reported a net loss of $82.4 million.

What deal did Joby announce yesterday?

Yesterday, Job Aviation announced a potential deal with Abdul Latif Jameel, a business based in Saudi Arabia.

Potential is the key word here.

That’s because the two companies didn’t actually agree to sell anything to or buy anything from one another. Instead, they signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This MoU will see the companies “explore opportunities to establish a distribution agreement in Saudi Arabia for Joby’s electric aircraft,” according to Joby.

That potential distribution agreement may see Joby deliver up to 200 air taxis and other related services valued at up to $1 billion to Abdul Latif Jameel “over the coming years.”

Joby has positioned the potential deal as a win-win for both American and Saudi Arabian business interests. 

“This collaboration is about bringing America’s leadership in electric air mobility to the world,” Joby Aviation CEO JoeBen Bevirt said in a statement announcing the deal.

Joby stock rises on the news

Given that Joby has recently been worth about $6 billion in total, it’s no wonder the company’s stock jumped yesterday after it announced it was exploring a single deal worth up to $1 billion. By the close of the market yesterday, JOBY stock had risen over 7% to $8.03 per share.

In premarket trading this morning, as of the time of this writing, JOBY stock is up another 2%.

However, while JOBY stock has been flying high over the past two days, it’s important to put the stock’s past performance into perspective. Despite JOBY’s stock price surge in the last 24 hours, the company’s stock was still down year-to-date by 1.23% as of yesterday’s close.

At the same time, when you look at the last 12 months, JOBY shares have had a significant return. Since last June, the stock has risen nearly 65%.

Where the stock goes from here is anyone’s guess. However, the company has had some exciting advances in recent years.

In February 2024, Joby announced that it plans to launch an air taxi service in Dubai by 2026, and in October 2024, Joby showed off one of its air taxis to much fanfare in New York’s Grand Central Station.

The company said that air taxi could carry up to 1,000 pounds of payload/people, had a range of 100 miles, and could reach speeds up to 200 mph.