Last Wednesday, a defense aviation company backed by Sam Altman, Peter Thiel and Thiel’s Founders Fund successfully tested an uncrewed airplane at supersonic speed, the first privately developed jet in the world to do so. The seven-year-old company, Hermeus, announced on Tuesday that it had flown its “Quarterhorse”—the name for its experimental aircraft—over a New Mexico military base at 1.21 times the speed of sound, or roughly 930 miles per hour.

It marked a crucial step towards the El Segundo, California-based unicorn’s goal of achieving hypersonic flight, over five times the speed of sound. No airplane operating today can reach that speed.

“Supersonic flight is a huge milestone that is going to be a massive tailwind to us, I believe,” says Zach Shore, who started transitioning into Hermeus’ CEO role the week before the Quarterhorse test flight, taking over from company cofounder AJ Piplica. Piplica remains as board chairman; cofounder Skyler Shuford has an observer seat and two additional cofounders are no longer with the firm.

“The reason it mattered,” says Shore of the test flight, “was I needed to show that my airplane was stable through the transonic [speed range],” which lies just below supersonic. “We did that. Boom. Great. That’s a huge risk off the table. Now I know my airplane’s stable.”

Next comes Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound, which the company hopes to hit this year. Mach 3 would then follow in the first half of 2027, says Shore. The hypersonic........

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