Foundation Robotics missed Oct 30 payroll; GM denies $300M order

General Motors told The SF Standard that a $300 million order Foundation Robotics cited in its 2024 fundraising materials was 'fabricated.' The San Francisco startup, which unveiled a 200-pound aluminum humanoid called the Phantom MK-2 last week, has not paid staff since missing payroll on October 30, per CNBC reporting cited in the same piece.

Federal records show zero contracts to Foundation itself. The $24.8 million Navy contract the company has gestured at belongs to IHMC, a research partner of its subsidiary Boardwalk Robotics; Boardwalk holds four government research contracts totaling $3.22 million. A Fox Business segment in April reported Foundation had 'just secured a $24 million contract with the Pentagon.' Federal records don't support that either. A deck titled 'Humanoids for War,' pulled from the company's own website, claimed $73 million in Department of War contracts and $100 million in contracted annual revenue from industrial customers. Reporter Zara Stone could not confirm any of it.

Foundation also claimed earlier this year to have sent two robots to Ukraine for combat testing. The journalist who accompanied the team, Craig Smith, said the robots never crossed the border. Ukrainian defense-tech outfit Brave1 confirmed no demos occurred. 'I didn't mean to suggest we'd actually delivered a demo,' co-CEO and former Marine Mike LeBlanc told the paper.

Former employees said the company pivoted toward combat applications without warning them. One described earlier military work as feeling like 'picking up boxes in an Amazon warehouse.' Another: 'Nobody was comfortable with it.' Several resigned. Cofounder Sankaet Pathak, 36, whose prior fintech Synapse filed for bankruptcy in April 2024 with a $60-90 million shortfall, laid out the cost logic plainly: 'A lot of these will get blown up, and thus we want to make them as cheap as possible.' The MK-1 leases at $100,000 a year with a 100-unit minimum; the MK-2 is expected at $75,000 a unit. This is the second Foundation story on our robotics tracker in a week.