First lady of Sierra Leone Fatima Jabbe-Bio, Polish first lady Marta Nawrocka, French first lady Brigitte Macron, and U.S. first lady Melania Trump look at a humanoid robot during the Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 25, 2026.
Oliver Contreras | Afp | Getty Images
The White House hosted its “first humanoid robot guest” on Wednesday, with first lady Melania Trump appearing alongside a robot from robotics upstart Figure AI.
The robot, identified as Figure 3, accompanied the first lady during the second day of the Fostering the Future Together Global Coalition Summit, a gathering focused on technology and children’s education.
The machine greeted attendees in multiple languages and described itself as “a humanoid built in the United States of America,” according to widely circulated footage from the event.
The display represented one of, if not the, highest-profile showcases of humanoid robotics in the U.S. to date and highlights how the tech is becoming a national priority amid global tech competition. Beijing has also promoted humanoid robots at highly publicized events this year.
The first lady used the robot to promote her push for artificial intelligence in children’s education, suggesting that the robots could one day act as interactive educators at home. However, Figure AI says its third-generation humanoids are also applicable for more general purposes, including commercial and household tasks.
The White House spotlight is likely to boost the brand of Nvidia-backed Figure AI, a lesser-known robot company compared to larger humanoid players like Tesla‘s Optimus and Boston Dynamics, though some of its team comes from those competitors, as well as tech giants like Apple.
A surging upstart
Figure AI was founded in 2022 by Brett Adcock, a tech entrepreneur and billionaire who previously co-founded the publicly traded aerospace company Archer Aviation and a digital hiring marketplace Vettery.
Powering its robots is the firm’s in-house Helix AI system, a vision-language-action model that powers its robots and enables learning through observation and verbal commands.
Amid growing investor excitement for physical AI, the firm raised more than $1 billion in its Series C funding round in September led by Parkway Venture Capital with participation from other notable investors such as Nvidia, Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures and Salesforce. That gave it a post-money valuation of $39 billion.
The fundraising is expected to be put towards the firm’s aim to deploy thousands of robots in homes and logistics over the coming years — a goal that has likely been made easier by a major endorsement from the White House.
Figure AI has already begun work with its first commercial customer in BMW, deploying its robots for tasks like handling sheet metal parts in manufacturing facilities.
Ongoing lawsuit
It’s possible that Melania’s endorsement of Figure AI’s robots as potential educators will trigger a reexamination of an ongoing lawsuit the company found itself in last year.
In November, Figure AI was sued by its former head of product safety, who alleged he was fired after warning executives that the company’s robots were powerful enough to fracture a human skull.
Robert Gruendel filed the complaint in federal court in California, claiming wrongful termination after raising safety concerns with CEO Brett Adcock and chief engineer Kyle Edelberg in September 2025.
The suit stated that Figure AI’s next-generation robots moved at superhuman speed and generated force approximately twice the level necessary to fracture an adult human skull.
Gruendel also alleged that one robot had carved a gash into a steel refrigerator door during a malfunction. Figure AI contends that Gruendel had been fired for poor performance, and described the allegations as “falsehoods.” Figure AI countersued in January, saying Gruendel failed in his role to help the company build a safe robot.
The lawsuit drew attention to broader questions about safety standards in humanoid robotics development and remains pending.
A tech figure across national priorities
Interestingly, the White House event on Wednesday wasn’t the first time that a company connected to Adcock received some major shine from the Trump administration.
Shares of the drone company he co-founded, Archer Aviation, surged in June last year after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order directing the establishment of a program to promote the safe integration of electric air taxis in U.S. cities.
Archer is participating in the initiative and is working on projects involving aircraft demonstrations. Following the June 2025 executive order, Archer raised $850 million in a registered direct stock offering.
Adcock co-founded Archer Aviation in 2018 with Adam Goldstein and initially served as co-CEO. However, Adcock stepped down in April 2022, and then resigned from the company’s board of directors shortly afterward.
He remains a shareholder, according to investment research platform Business Quant, but he has no active executive, board, or advisory position at the company.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Archer Aviation is an aerospace company. An earlier version of the story gave an incorrect description of the firm’s business.
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