A black humanoid robot with a dark visor for a face and outstretched arms stands in front of a large American flag

Foundation’s Phantom MK-1 humanoid robot in front of a US flag, photographed in February 2025. Image: Waves1234 / Wikimedia Commons, CC0, cropped

Foundation Future Industries, the San Francisco startup building humanoid robots for the US military with Eric Trump as an investor and adviser, has not paid its staff since missing payroll on October 30, CNBC reported on Saturday. Its chief executive, Sankaet Pathak, borrowed $4.6 million from the company last year to buy a home, according to people familiar with the matter.

Unpaid since October 30

Workers are still waiting for their pay more than two weeks after the missed payroll, the people told CNBC, speaking anonymously. It is not the first time: Foundation also ran short of cash for payroll in August, when staff waited about two days until an existing investor put in a bridge loan.

Pathak told employees in a memo this week that he was working to find money to repay their back wages, CNBC says. People inside the company fear it could fold without new funding. Pathak has been trying since at least January to raise hundreds of millions of dollars at a $3 billion valuation, and says Foundation is close to unveiling a next-generation, weapons-ready robot to help the US compete with China.

A $4.6 million loan and a one-person board

Some workers are angry that money which could have covered their wages went on the loan, according to CNBC. Pathak described it as a short-term loan at the time, and existing investors knew about it from the company's financial disclosures. Public records show that an LLC naming Pathak as its sole principal bought a $4.6 million house in Sausalito, California, with views over San Francisco Bay, in October 2025.

Pathak is Foundation's only board member and owns most of its shares, which CNBC says worries prospective investors. One of the people put it bluntly:

This is what happens in a company with no governance. Are you just going to let it ride into the ground, and you ride off into the sunset?

A person familiar with Foundation, to CNBC

A spokesman for Pathak acknowledged receiving a detailed list of the story's main points on Thursday but did not respond to CNBC's requests for comment. Foundation hasn't commented publicly.

Pathak's previous company, the fintech middleman Synapse, collapsed in 2024, locking more than 100,000 Americans out of a combined $265 million in deposits. The bankruptcy trustee, former FDIC chair Jelena McWilliams, said as much as $96 million in customer funds went missing.

The Pentagon contracts it didn't win

Foundation's Phantom robots have been pitched for battlefield work, and CNBC reported in May that the company was testing them in Ukraine, where the country's former defence minister has said he wants a humanoid robot to kill a Russian soldier. Pathak has also suggested they could patrol the US-Mexico border. In an April interview on Fox Business, he said that what Foundation was about to unveil would be "the strongest humanoid robot that exists anywhere in the world, including China".

That interview, and much of the coverage since, said Foundation had won $24 million in Pentagon contracts. According to CNBC's sources, it didn't: the figure comes from government research contracts won by Boardwalk Robotics, a Florida company Foundation bought in late 2024. Boardwalk's robot, Alex, was the basis for Foundation's first robot, the Phantom MK-1, one person said, and another said the Boardwalk deal has performance milestones that have not been met.

It is not the first disputed claim. In 2024, CNBC reported that letters Pathak sent to prospective investors cited a $300 million purchase order from General Motors, which GM rejected. Foundation co-founder Mike LeBlanc said at the time he was "embarrassed" by the marketing materials.

‘Corruption in plain sight’

Eric Trump, the president's son, was introduced in the April interview as a Foundation investor and its chief strategy adviser; the size of his stake is unclear. He calls Pathak a friend and has pitched the robots in patriotic terms:

We have to win robotics in the United States of America.

Eric Trump, Foundation investor, in April

Senator Elizabeth Warren responded on April 23:

Eric Trump did not respond to CNBC. His spokesperson told the Financial Times that he had "no involvement in Foundation's management, operations, strategic decisions or commercial activities", including any government contracts. A Washington Post investigation in July found that startups backed by investment vehicles linked to Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. had won at least $3.2 billion in government business.

Why it matters

Humanoid robots are drawing huge sums, from Agile Robots' $8.5 billion valuation to a Pentagon that is building a command for autonomous warfare. Foundation shows the other side of that boom: a robot soldier pitch with a famous backer, a $3 billion asking price and, if CNBC's sources are right, no money to pay the engineers building it.

Sources: CNBC (November 14, 2026); CNBC (May 30, 2026); Fox Business; Sen. Elizabeth Warren on X; Financial Times.

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