Elon Musk flies to Seattle after skipping OpenAI trial closing in Oakland

Elon Musk flew from Hawthorne, California, to Paine Field in Everett, Washington, on Monday morning aboard his Gulfstream G550, tail N272BG. The two-hour, 27-minute flight arrived just after 6:17 a.m. local time, placing him in the Seattle area as jury deliberations begin in his landmark lawsuit against OpenAI.

The trip comes the same week a nine-person jury in Oakland federal court starts weighing whether OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman breached a charitable trust by converting the nonprofit into a for-profit entity, per CNBC and The Next Web. Musk was notably absent from closing arguments last Thursday — his attorney apologized to the jury, explaining Musk was in Beijing on President Donald Trump’s state-visit delegation. The judge had placed Musk on recall status, meaning he was supposed to be available to testify on short notice, though he was not recalled.

Musk’s recent flight history shows heavy West Coast movement: he flew from Austin to the Seattle area on May 14, then to New York, back to Los Angeles, and up to the Bay Area before Monday’s hop to Everett. The pattern suggests business meetings or personal commitments in the Pacific Northwest, though no public event has been confirmed for this week. His fleet of five Gulfstreams, registered through Falcon Landing LLC, remains active as the trial’s liability phase unfolds.