Peter Thiel's Gulfstream V N878DB returns to Los Angeles after Las Vegas trip

Peter Thiel's Gulfstream V, tail number N878DB, flew from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas to Los Angeles International Airport on Monday, October 26, 2026. The aircraft departed Las Vegas at 00:12 UTC and landed in Los Angeles at 01:08 UTC, spending 56 minutes in the air. The flight covered a great-circle distance of 203 nm, or 234 miles.

The aircraft reached a highest altitude of 28,000 feet and a top ground speed of 446 knots. The flight burned an estimated 381 US gallons of jet fuel, producing about 3,662 kg of CO2, roughly the same as driving a car 9,064 miles. The Gulfstream V, built in 2007 and registered through Thorondor LLC, is an ultra long range jet with a top speed of Mach 0.885 and a ceiling of 51,000 feet. It is designed to carry up to 16 passengers over 6,675 nm.

The aircraft used about 3 percent of its total range on this flight. It averaged 219 knots ground speed. The departure runway at Harry Reid International Airport is 14,835 feet long at an elevation of 2,181 feet. Los Angeles International Airport's longest runway is 12,894 feet at 125 feet elevation.

This was the 16th tracked landing at Los Angeles for N878DB in the window from July 1 to October 25, 2026. The aircraft's home base is Los Angeles International Airport, and its usual destinations include Lihue, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Teterboro, Savannah, and Puerto Vallarta. In the 30 days before this flight, the aircraft visited nine airports in one country, flew about 14,327 nm, and completed 13 flights totaling 34.4 hours in the air. Other tracked aircraft that landed at Los Angeles in the 24 hours before this landing included Kim Kardashian's Gulfstream G650ER about 17 hours earlier, Les Wexner's Gulfstream G650ER about 7 hours earlier, Arthur Blank's Bombardier Global 7500 about 2 hours earlier, and SpaceX's Boeing 737-800 under an hour earlier.

Before this flight, the aircraft had made 15 tracked landings at Los Angeles since July 1, 2026. The previous one was on October 23. In that window, the most common destinations were Los Angeles with 15 landings, San Francisco with 7, and Teterboro with 4. The longest leg in the 30 days before this flight was San Francisco to Teterboro on October 21, covering 2,226 nautical miles.

Peter Thiel is the co-founder of PayPal, co-founder and chairman of Palantir Technologies, and a partner at Founders Fund, with a net worth of about $27.5 billion. He has a home base in Los Angeles and a reported $12 million mansion in Buenos Aires. Las Vegas is a hub for technology conferences and investment events, and Thiel's venture capital firm Founders Fund has backed numerous startups that may have ties to the area. A web search found no public events or meetings involving Thiel scheduled in Las Vegas on this date. notes that the aircraft's first tracked landing in Las Vegas since July occurred on October 25, the day before this return flight.

The aircraft had been on the ground at Las Vegas for about 22 hours before this return flight. It had arrived from Los Angeles on October 25, a 52-minute trip covering 205 nautical miles. Recent flights also included Oakland to Los Angeles on October 23 and Teterboro to Oakland on October 22.

The aircraft returned to its home base after a short round trip, continuing a pattern of West Coast shuttles that has included multiple flights between Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose in recent weeks. The Gulfstream V remains active after being parked in Colorado since late 2024.