Elon Musk's Gulfstream G650ER lands in San Jose the week of the OpenAI mediation

The flight also follows a well-worn corridor for the aircraft. Recent tracked movements for N628TS show a September 17 hop from Hawthorne to Los Angeles, a September 18 run from Austin to Washington Dulles, and a September 20 leg from Memphis to Los Angeles — a pattern that mirrors the busy shuttle between SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, Tesla's Austin base, and the Bay Area. The G650ER is Elon Musk's primary jet, with the tail number N628TS nodding to his June 28 birthday, and it has logged hundreds of flights on this same route since 2015. If Elon Musk was aboard, this would be his third Bay Area visit in a month, following a September 17 arrival from Moffett Field and a September 16 departure from Starbase to Los Angeles.

For a man who sold all his California properties in 2020 and now lives in a $50,000 SpaceX-rented home in Boca Chica, the Bay Area remains an unavoidable business stop. X's engineering hub in San Jose, Tesla's Palo Alto roots, and the OpenAI litigation all pull in the same direction. The aircraft's owner has a history of using these short hops to attend to legal and corporate matters — the same week he flew to Beijing in May while the OpenAI trial was still in testimony, per Fact In Face. A 47-minute hop from Los Angeles to San Jose is, by his standards, barely a commute.

Whether the mediation produces a settlement or the case lurches toward another round of discovery, the aircraft's flight log will keep the answer. For now, the G650ER sits on the tarmac in San Jose, a Gulfstream-shaped question mark in a legal saga that has already cost Elon Musk more than a few hours of sleep — and, if the flight path is any indication, a few more frequent-flier miles.