Elon Musk returns to Hawthorne after SpaceX's Starship test and IPO filing

Elon Musk flew from Santa Elena Airport, Mexico, to Hawthorne, California, on May 22, arriving at Jack Northrop Field at 4:38 a.m. UTC after a three-hour flight in his Gulfstream G650ER. The short hop from the Texas border region to Los Angeles County comes just hours after SpaceX completed the twelfth test flight of its upgraded Starship rocket.

The Starship launch, described by Bloomberg as a "high-stakes mission" ahead of the largest IPO in history, occurred on May 21 from SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas [bloomberg.com]. The next day, SpaceX's S-1 filing revealed a $1.75 trillion valuation target and plans to deploy orbital AI data centers by 2028, as detailed by TechCrunch [techcrunch.com]. The filing also showed that xAI, Musk's AI company merged into SpaceX, lost $6.4 billion last year.

Musk's travel pattern this week reflects his dual roles at SpaceX and xAI: he flew from Hawthorne to San Jose on May 20, then to Starbase on May 21 for the test, and back to Hawthorne on May 22. With the IPO roadshow expected in coming weeks, his presence at company headquarters signals the start of a critical financial chapter.