Brad Garlinghouse flies to Van Nuys as Ripple pushes stablecoin into Africa

Brad Garlinghouse flew from Santa Ynez to Van Nuys on June 17, a 46-minute hop in his Bombardier Global 6000, N100RP. The short flight from the Santa Ynez Valley — a known weekend retreat for the Bay Area elite — lands him back in the Los Angeles basin, where he maintains a presence tied to Ripple's expanding institutional footprint.

The same week, Ripple invested in African payments company Flutterwave's Series E round, valuing the firm at $3.2 billion, per a CoinDesk report on June 16. The deal integrates Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin and the XRP Ledger into Flutterwave's cross-border payments infrastructure, aiming to lower costs for businesses moving money across Africa. Garlinghouse has been vocal about stablecoin payments as a primary growth area for Ripple in 2026, telling an audience at XRP Las Vegas that treasury infrastructure is central to the company's second-half strategy.

The Van Nuys arrival fits a pattern: N100RP has shuttled between California and Florida repeatedly this month, with trips to Miami and Fort Lauderdale on June 10 and 13, and a June 14 hop from Orlando to Knoxville. For Garlinghouse, the Santa Ynez-to-Van Nuys leg is less about a single event and more about the rhythm of a CEO managing a company pushing regulatory clarity in Washington while deploying capital into real-world payments infrastructure abroad.