Mark Zuckerberg flies from Kauai to Silicon Valley amid publisher copyright lawsuit

Mark Zuckerberg flew his Gulfstream G700 from Lihue, Hawaii to Moffett Federal Airfield near San Jose on Thursday evening, a journey of 4 hours and 18 minutes. The $80 million jet, delivered in December 2024, is more fuel-efficient than his older G650 but still emitted roughly 19 tons of CO₂ on the leg.

The flight lands the same week a class-action lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court accuses Zuckerberg of personally authorizing Meta’s use of millions of copyrighted books to train its Llama AI system, per ABC News. The suit, brought by five publishers and novelist Scott Turow, alleges Zuckerberg “followed their well-known motto ‘move fast and break things’” and directly encouraged the infringement. Meta has vowed to fight the case.

Zuckerberg had been at his Kauai estate — a 2,300-acre compound with a 5,000-square-foot underground bunker — since at least May 10, according to recent flight data. The return to California puts him near Meta’s headquarters as the company prepares its legal defense, a familiar pattern of shuttling between his island retreat and the mainland for business crises.