Elon Musk flies from Seattle to Silicon Valley as OpenAI trial jury deliberates

Elon Musk flew from Seattle Paine Field to Moffett Federal Airfield on Monday afternoon aboard his Gulfstream G550, tail N272BG, a 98-minute hop that lands him back in Silicon Valley just as the jury in his landmark lawsuit against OpenAI begins deliberations.

The timing is not incidental. The nine-person jury in Oakland federal court received its final instructions last Thursday and is expected to begin deliberating Monday, per reporting from The Next Web and Pure AI. Musk was absent for closing arguments — his attorney apologized to the jury, explaining that Musk was in Beijing accompanying President Donald Trump on a state visit, as CNBC and NBC News covered. The trial, which Musk filed in 2024, alleges that OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman violated the nonprofit's founding mission by restructuring into a for-profit entity, unjustly enriching themselves in the process.

The flight from Seattle follows a pattern of cross-country movement: Musk flew from Washington, D.C., to Seattle earlier Monday, and from Los Angeles to Seattle on Sunday. His Gulfstream fleet has logged heavy political and legal travel this year, with Moffett — adjacent to NASA Ames and a common tech-executive gateway — serving as his Bay Area arrival point for the trial's final act.