Larry Ellison's Cessna Citation flies to Santa Ynez the week Paramount's Warner Bros. bid deadline looms

Larry Ellison's Cessna Citation CJ4, tail N417C, was tracked departing Santa Monica Municipal Airport at 1:10 p.m. Pacific on August 14, landing at Santa Ynez Airport 25 minutes later after a brief, 384-knot dash over the coastal range at 13,925 feet. ADS-B data shows the aircraft's movement, not its occupants; as a matter of policy, Celebplanes tracks registrations, not people. But should Larry Ellison have been aboard, the timing lands him in Santa Barbara County's wine country during a week when his family's media ambitions are reaching a critical inflection point.

The arrival comes as Paramount — now controlled by Ellison's son David via the Skydance merger that closed last month — faces a Monday deadline to submit its final bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, per reports from Reuters and recentlyheard.com. The Ellison family is backing Paramount's largely cash offer in what could exceed $70 billion, an all-in push that, according to CNBC, is underwritten by Larry Ellison's personal guarantee, a portion of his $365 billion fortune. The Department of Justice is simultaneously reviewing a competing all-cash proposal from Netflix, per the same report. A flight into the Santa Ynez Valley — home to boutique vineyards and private estates — fits a pattern of retreats that mix pleasure with pulsed negotiation.

This flight is the latest in a flurry of short-haul movements by Ellison's fleet this week. On August 12, the same aircraft tracked from Palm Beach to Van Nuys, a 4-hour-40-minute run aboard Ellison's Gulfstream G650, N817GS, that Celebplanes covered earlier this week. The Citation then hopped from Van Nuys to San Jose on August 10 and back to Santa Monica on August 14, before the final leg to Santa Ynez. Fifty of Ellison's 71 trackable 2025 flights originated or ended in Florida, and Van Nuys is his most frequent California destination — a gateway to Hollywood's corporate suites and the ongoing Warner Bros. negotiations, as noted by simpleflying.com.

Ellison's aircraft fleet — three jets registered to Wing and a Prayer Inc. and Oracle Navigation LLC — also includes a Global Express XRS that has made transatlantic runs to Kidlington and Alghero this year. The Citation CJ4, a lighter, more maneuverable platform, is ideal for the kind of short-notice, short-hop trips that punctuate an active deal calendar. Santa Ynez's single-runway airport, tucked between the Los Padres National Forest and the Pacific, serves a corridor that includes Ellison's California properties and the broader tech-and-entertainment orbit he now straddles as Oracle's CTO and Paramount's controlling shareholder.

Whether for a weekend retreat ahead of Monday's bid deadline or a quiet consultation with advisors, the flight into Santa Ynez fits the track of a man who, per Celebplanes tracking, has moved his aircraft from Lanai to Los Angeles to Santa Maria in the span of a week. The paperwork may be due Monday, but the aircraft keeps moving.