Elon Musk's Gulfstream G650ER N628TS flies a 16-minute loop out of Austin

Elon Musk's Gulfstream G650ER, tail number N628TS, flew a short round trip out of Austin Bergstrom International Airport on Monday, November 2, 2026. The aircraft departed at 02:14 UTC and landed back at the same airport at 02:30 UTC, spending just 16 minutes in the air. The flight covered a great-circle distance of 47 nautical miles, or about 55 miles. The plane reached a top ground speed of 321 knots and a highest altitude of 12,325 feet.

The aircraft's average ground speed was 176 knots. Austin Bergstrom International Airport has a longest runway of 12,250 feet and sits at an elevation of 542 feet. The Gulfstream G650ER burns an estimated 470 US gallons of fuel per hour.

The 16-minute hop used about 1 percent of the Gulfstream G650ER's maximum range of 7,500 nautical miles. The aircraft burned an estimated 127 US gallons of fuel, producing about 1,220 kilograms of CO2, roughly the same as driving a car 3,021 miles. The G650ER typically seats 12 passengers, with a maximum of 19, and has a service ceiling of 51,000 feet and a top speed of Mach 0.925. It entered service in 2014 as the ultra-long-range variant of the G650, carrying an extra 4,000 pounds of fuel.

This flight ended at Musk's home base, Austin Bergstrom International Airport, where the aircraft had landed earlier the same day. In the 30 days before this flight, Musk's fleet of five Gulfstreams made 34 tracked flights, with the most common destinations being Los Angeles, Austin, and San Jose. The fleet's longest leg in that period was a 1,410-nautical-mile flight from Perryville to Los Angeles on October 31, 2026, flown by the Gulfstream G550 N272BG. The G650ER N628TS had also flown from Los Angeles to Austin earlier on November 2, a 1-hour 44-minute trip covering 953 nautical miles.

The aircraft had landed at Austin six times in that window, with the last landing on November 2, 2026, just before this flight. The owner's fleet includes N628TS, N272BG, N502SX, N450GG, and the new N8628 G800 delivered in February 2025.

Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, founder of xAI, and executive chairman of X, with a net worth estimated between $367 billion and $500 billion. Musk's travel patterns often include trips between Austin, Los Angeles, San Jose, and Brownsville, Texas, where Starbase is located. The short loop out of Austin does not correspond to any known public event or announcement tied to Musk or his companies.

The flight ended at the same airport where it began, with no stop at another field. The aircraft's brief airborne time and low altitude suggest a routine operational movement, such as a test flight or a repositioning. No further details about the purpose of the flight are available from public sources. The aircraft remains at its home base as of the time of this report.