Ken Karklin has left his role as CEO of Pivotal, the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) company backed by Larry Page. Karklin led the company for more than four years and left this week, according to a press release.
Pivotal said Karklin is “pursuing new endeavors” and provided no other information about his departure. He will be replaced on an interim basis by Mike Ross, an aviation executive who joined Pivotal’s board of directors in November 2025.
“Leading Pivotal has been the privilege of my career,” Karklin said in a statement. He added that the company had moved beyond prototypes and press releases and was operating “in the real world” under real constraints.
Karklin’s departure comes two years after Pivotal began sales of Helix, its first lightweight electric personal aircraft. The single-seat aircraft does not require a pilot’s license to fly and starts at around $200,000.
Pivotal is also developing BlackFly for defense and first responder use cases. Last month, BlackFly responded to an emergency in North Carolina for the first time, and Pivotal said it beat an ambulance traveling in parallel by 20 minutes. The company says BlackFly has flown more than 10,000 times. Pivotal was selected for the Federal Aviation Administration’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program.
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