Alex Taylor (Orb Aerospace)

He was born in CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry, moved with his parents to Turkey at the age of two and lived in Istanbul until he was 12, when the family moved to Michigan. A 2020 article quotes him as saying: “I’m a California native and lived internationally for a decade.”⁠[1][2]

The Grand Rapids Business Journal writes that his family moved from the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry to the Middle East for a service opportunity when he was two and returned ten years later, settling in Lowell. School News Network writes that his parents were missionaries and that he spent much of his boyhood in the Middle East; in the Impakter interview he calls himself the son of two missionaries. Of his family’s time overseas he said: “We interacted with a lot of refugees.”⁠[3][4][5][1]

His biography on the Praxis website states that he grew up in the Middle East, surrounded by refugees, and experienced eight different methods of education at 10 different schools before graduating.⁠[6]

The Grand Rapids Business Journal writes that his wish to help others first formed during those years in the Middle East and that he traces his obsession with aviation to the desperate needs he saw there. In the Impakter interview he says that there is little to no general aviation in the Middle East and that what exists is much too expensive. He has said: “My heart’s always been in flying.”⁠[3][5][1]

The Grand Rapids Business Journal writes that after the return to the United States his interest in aviation grew, but becoming a pilot was not an ideal way for him to break into the industry; he said, “I couldn’t afford to get my pilot’s license.” The article sets down an exchange he recounted: a friend had said a few years earlier that one of the best things his parents did for him was to give him an allowance, and he replied that one of the best things his own parents did for him was that they could not afford to. He said that any access to aviation for him was going to come through opportunities he created; after working construction for a summer and saving enough money, he built his first unmanned aerial vehicle.⁠[3]

Impakter writes that by the age of 12 he had built his first unmanned aerial vehicle and that he built dozens more over the following years; the 2020 article on Entrepreneur’s website likewise has him starting to build his own unmanned aerial vehicles at 12; the Praxis biography states that at 12 he was building drones. A photo caption in Lowell’s First Look states that the first flying device he built was a quad.⁠[5][2][1][6]

Accounts of what happened when he was 14 differ. The Impakter interview relates that at 14 he decided not to wait for permission, and, after a year of building for local hobbyists, began building his first agricultural and cinematic drones, and organized these operations under a company, Wind Craft Quads. The Grand Rapids Business Journal writes that at 14 he launched Wind Craft Aviation and went on making and selling drones. The Praxis biography states that at 14 he started a company in his parents’ basement.⁠[5][3][6]

Lowell’s First Look writes that at 16 he became the youngest commercial drone pilot in the United States; he says the same in the Impakter interview; the Praxis biography calls him the youngest commercial drone pilot in the country without giving an age. Lowell’s First Look wrote in January 2019 that over the preceding two years his focus had changed from flying for fun to flying with a mission.⁠[1][5][6]

Impakter writes that he founded Wind Craft Aviation in October 2017 and that the company had a hangar in Lowell, Michigan. The article on Entrepreneur’s website states that he launched Wind Craft Aviation in 2017, at the age of 16, from the Lowell City Airport in Kent County, Michigan. In the Grand Rapids Business Journal’s telling, he founded Orb Aerospace in 2017, when he was a junior in high school, and Wind Craft was later absorbed into Orb Aerospace. The Praxis biography has him founding Orb at 16.⁠[5][2][3][6]

The Grand Rapids Business Journal writes that he launched Orb after studying aircraft mechanics at Kent Career Tech Center while attending Lowell High School. He described that time as “an incredible world of parallels,” going from conversations with high-level investors on the West Coast to a soccer game to getting a C in Spanish class. He said that it was also “a lonely period of life” and that he opted out of almost every traditional experience of American high school.⁠[3]

Lowell’s First Look published an article on him on January 22, 2019, giving his age as 18 and describing him as a senior at Lowell High School and the founder of Wind Craft Aviation; that year he and a team of engineers were to build a full-size prototype aircraft in a hangar at the Lowell Airport.⁠[1]

The prototype was called Sally Jean. The article states that it was expected to carry at least 250 pounds, reach up to 185 miles per hour and travel 300 to 500 miles, could be piloted or flown remotely, would cost about a third of a standard aircraft, could take off and land on a very small footprint, about the space of a parked car, and would be powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, and that a model of it resembled something from Star TrekStar TrekStar Trek is a science-fiction franchise originating in the work of Gene Roddenberry. Its central subjects include exploration aboard starships, encounters across cultures and humanity’s future. It spans television, film, animation and other media, with a long-established fan community.Open the full entry; he expected a full-size version to be ready for testing by the end of the year and intended it to be used first for humanitarian purposes. He said: “It takes off like a helicopter, and it flies like an airplane.”⁠[1]

School News Network’s article of April 19, 2019 states that Sally Jean was named after his grandmother, of whom he said that she had “a very resilient quality about her”; the design used 12 rotors for vertical takeoff, an electric propulsion system based on fuel cell technology, and autonomous flight with safety features meant to remove the risks of a pilot-flown aircraft.⁠[4]

Lowell’s First Look writes that he imagined residents of Lowell commuting to work in Chicago in 25 minutes by personal aircraft and autonomous planes delivering life-saving supplies to remote areas; he had seen that other countries lacked the infrastructure of the United States, which makes aid hard to deliver. He considered the existing transportation system dated and argued for taking commuters from smaller communities into the air and then onto public transit in cities, in place of pouring millions into aging roads.⁠[1]

The article states that his team consisted of 17 engineers, advisors and other professionals; that venture capitalists and business accelerators had shown interest and that the company was pursuing grants as well; that he had recently pitched the project at Business Network Chicago, where the article has it well received; and that the company was trying to raise $300,000 in order to gain access to millions of dollars reserved for later development overseas. Because of U.S. government regulations the first customers were likely to be overseas, and the company was considering Nepal and Kenya as launch markets once a working prototype was complete.⁠[1]

By then he had finished the classes required for graduation and was dividing his time between the aviation maintenance program at Kent Career Technical Center and a work-based learning program, and he was due to graduate from Lowell Area Schools that May; he wanted to earn a commercial pilot’s license next and was exploring the Thiel Fellowship as a way to delay college and concentrate on his business. He said: “I’ll make Lowell proud someday.”⁠[1]

School News Network describes him as the founder and chief executive of Windcraft Aviation, a company with financial backers. He credited Todd Olson, the aviation maintenance instructor at Kent Career Tech Center, with opening the way into the aviation industry for him: “Without Mr. Olson, I probably would not have taken the next step.”⁠[4]

On April 12, 2019 Impakter published a question-and-answer interview with him, which states that the company had 17 engineers, pilots and mechanics, was in a seed round of fundraising, and was occupied with prototyping and events such as EAA AirVenture. The design figures given in the interview were a fuel with four times the energy density of Jet A, ten times less drag than competitors and a price comparable to that of a new car. He said that in the long term he looked forward to the day when the Sustainable Development Goals would be completed goals.⁠[5]

The Grand Rapids Business Journal writes that he first applied for the Thiel Fellowship in 2020, when the pandemic had brought financial hardship to Orb; he said that the program’s $100,000 was a large sum for the company at the time. He was a finalist but was not selected, and he went on working as many as 90 hours a week on Orb.⁠[3]

On October 22, 2020 Entrepreneur’s website published sponsored content provided by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation whose headline calls him a 19-year-old tech founder. It states that Wind Craft Aviation then had six employees and was developing electric vertical take-off and landing (E-VTOL) aircraft, to be used for delivering aid and evacuating refugees in underdeveloped nations and eventually as point-to-point transportation in more developed economies; the company had received a grant from the State of Michigan through the PlanetM Mobility Grants program, which he said gave it the “tools and credibility” to get started. He spoke of the state’s community of founders as having “a legacy of grit and determination.”⁠[2]

The Praxis biography states that at 19 he received his first U.S. Department of DefenseU.S. Department of DefenseThe U.S. Department of Defense is an executive department of the United States federal government, formed in 1949 from the National Military Establishment created in 1947 and headquartered at the Pentagon. The department’s website describes it as America’s oldest and largest government agency.Open the full entry contract; it also states that he withdrew his college applications, without giving a year.⁠[6]

Lowell’s First Look wrote on August 16, 2021 that when it first spoke with him, in 2019, he was a high school senior and his company was called Wind Craft Aviation; the company was now called Orb Aerospace and had secured government contracts to help develop and manufacture the aircraft, called “orbs.” The article describes him as the founder of Orb Aerospace and also its “janitor.” He said that “a couple million” was being brought into the organization and that the company would like to add 50 to 60 staff members the following year and could have as many as 20,000 to 30,000 workers by 2035; he said: “We have the opportunity to do something that puts us on the map globally.”⁠[7]

The article states that he had originally envisioned orbs as personal aircraft that could replace cars but had come to think that Federal Aviation Administration regulations would make them hard to sell to private customers in the near term, so the company had shifted its focus to uses such as humanitarian aid, and its government contracts pointed to possible military uses as well; he said that the Air Force had been looking for a solution that would meet its needs. Because of those contracts he was limited in what he could say about his current prototype; the company had decided to develop its own energy system, with a new battery power source in place of fossil fuels.⁠[7]

The article states that he had been working on the new aircraft since he was in high school. He was not discouraged by the prospect of a timeline of many years, saying that TeslaTeslaTesla is an American electric vehicle and energy company whose businesses span automobiles, solar energy, and battery energy storage. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, its shares are listed on Nasdaq under the ticker TSLA.Open the full entry took about 10 years to go from an idea to a working production vehicle. The company expected to be manufacturing aircraft in earnest by 2035, with largely automated production, and to need many engineers in Lowell for research and development. He had no plans to move the company: “We love the town of Lowell.”⁠[7]

The Grand Rapids Business Journal writes that figures in the aviation industry took notice of Orb, that the company raised $3.5 million in seed funding, and that it secured contracts and partnerships with the World Championship Air Race and the U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX program. In September 2021 he traveled to HawaiiHawaiiHawaii is a U.S. state consisting of a group of volcanic islands in the central Pacific Ocean; its capital is Honolulu, on the island of Oʻahu. Hawaii was admitted to the Union on August 21, 1959, as the 50th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 1,455,271.Open the full entry to demonstrate technology for the U.S. Navy, and while there he submitted a short application for the next Thiel Fellowship class; he learned in December that he had been accepted.⁠[3]

The Thiel Foundation named the next class of Thiel Fellows, 23 people, on January 6, 2022, and he was among them. The list reads “Alex Taylor: 20, Lowell, MI” and describes his project thus: Orb Aerospace creates electric aircraft to meet the needs of developing nations.⁠[8]

The Grand Rapids Business Journal writes that he was the only one of the class’s 23 recipients from Michigan; the two-year program was created by Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry, a co-founder of PayPalPayPalPayPal Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: PYPL) is an American digital payments company that operates payment brands including PayPal, Venmo, Braintree, and Xoom, providing online and in-store payments, money transfers, and consumer credit to consumers and merchants worldwide.Open the full entry, and he was to receive a $100,000 grant for Orb Aerospace; the article states that the program selects 20 to 30 applicants aged 22 or younger each year, that fellows must drop out of college or at least postpone their higher education, and that fellows need not have incorporated a company or built out a product at the time of application. The Praxis biography gives 2021 as the year in which he was awarded the fellowship. He said that he felt immediate relief on learning of his acceptance, because only a few things validate that he skipped college “for the right reasons”; the article has him relieved at the validation of his vision.⁠[3][6]

An item in AxiosAxiosAxios is a US digital news media company founded in 2016 by former Politico executives Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz and launched in January 2017. It is known for short news items and industry newsletters in the “Smart Brevity” style, especially for its Washington political coverage, and publishes local news newsletters in cities across the United States through Axios Local. Since 2022 it has been owned by Cox Enterprises.Open the full entry’s professional service dated May 3, 2022 states that filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionU.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is the federal securities regulator of the United States. Created during the Great Depression by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and led by five commissioners, it has a three-part mission of protecting investors, maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation.Open the full entry by Orb Aerospace, which was building an all-electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle, showed that the company’s losses over the previous two years came to roughly a third of its funding; its founder, Alex Taylor, said that a seed round was in the works. Axios’s assessment was that building complex electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles is capital-intensive and that, unless another tranche of financing came through quickly, Orb might fail to get off the ground.⁠[9]

The Grand Rapids Business Journal ran a front-page article on him in its issue of July 11, 2022, giving his age as 21, describing him as from West Michigan and stating his goal as creating “the world’s largest humanitarian air force.” He said: “We’re doing for aviation what the internet did for information.”⁠[3]

The article calls Orb Aerospace an aircraft company reinventing aviation with the goal of becoming “the world’s most accessible option for the industry”; the company meant to build an aviation network that needs no fixed infrastructure, with aircraft called orbs traveling between nodes in different places; the company was building prototypes at the time, and the aircraft it envisioned were fully electric and quiet, intended to decentralize supply chains and meet needs in developing countries. The article closes with his words: “I want to use this obsession I have to make a meaningful impact.”⁠[3]

A news item published by Lawrence Technological University on October 2, 2024 states that Michigan’s Office of Future Mobility and Electrification awarded a total of $813,000 ($525,000 from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and $288,000 from Centrepolis Accelerator) to 17 companies through the new Michigan Mobility Prototyping Grant Program, among them Orb Aerospace of Lowell; it describes the company as a developer of hybrid-electric drone aircraft and states that the grant supported the final stages of product development, including software enhancements and production readiness, so that Orb LASSie would meet the demands of military and humanitarian missions. The item does not mention Alex Taylor.⁠[10]

The Praxis website lists Orb Aerospace as a venture of its “Business 2025” program, with headquarters in Lowell, Michigan, and Alex Taylor and Brian Davis as its people; his own page there labels him its founder. The page describes the company as a builder of autonomous aircraft that serve as on-demand infrastructure in places that lack infrastructure or where it has been destroyed by natural disasters or conflict, with the Philippines, Asheville, North CarolinaNorth CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state in the South Atlantic region of the United States; its capital is Raleigh and its largest city is Charlotte. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on November 21, 1789, becoming the 12th state, and its population in the 2020 census was 10,439,388.Open the full entry, and Ukraine given as examples; its aircraft range from 10-pound drones to 3,000-pound aircraft, meant to bring communications, power and logistics infrastructure to every village on the planet, and the company intends to manufacture at scale in the Midwest and to sell “infrastructure-as-a-service” to customers who have never used aviation. The goal stated on the page is for Orb in 2030 to be what Roman roads were in 100 AD, “a decisive tool for accomplishing the great commission through human flourishing.”⁠[11][6]

On September 23, 2025 the State of Michigan announced the companies chosen for the 2025 “Make It in Michigan” Mobility Prototyping Grant Program, among them Orb Aerospace of Lowell, whose project was to design and prototype custom motors, made in the United States, for unmanned aerial systems; the selected projects were to receive a combined $2 million in funding and services, with awards of up to $100,000 per company. The announcement does not mention Alex Taylor.⁠[12]

On August 12, 2026 the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity announced $2 million in total for five advanced air mobility pilot projects through the AAM Statewide Mobility Challenges of the Michigan Mobility Funding Platform, which NextEnergy administers. Orb Aerospace was paired with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to use vertical takeoff and landing drones for aerial mapping, wildfire monitoring and natural resource management. The person quoted for Orb Aerospace in the release is Brian Davis, whose title is given as co-founder and chief executive and who names Orb Lassie and ARC Edge as the technologies; Brian Davis’s page on the Praxis website labels him chief operating officer of Orb Aerospace. The release does not mention Alex Taylor.⁠[13][14]

Orb Aerospace: Official website: https://www.orb.aero/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7][11][15]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-taylor-06432915b/ (opens in a new window).⁠[6]