Steve Jobs's Former Gulfstream V Re-Registered to Trousdale Aviation LLC After Jony Ive Ownership
Why It MattersRegistration changes on aircraft with famous provenance show how an FAA certificate records ownership without fixing the sale date, leaving buyers and observers to reconstruct transactions from registration history.
What happened
Steve Jobs's former Gulfstream V, serial number 586, has changed registered ownership. An FAA certificate dated May 13, 2026, lists Trousdale Aviation LLC as the registered owner, although the certificate does not independently establish when the sale was completed. Trousdale Aviation is linked to investor Phillip Sarofim through Trousdale Ventures.
Apple's board awarded the aircraft to Jobs in December 1999 as a bonus for helping turn the company around, and Apple announced the gift publicly in January 2000, alongside stock options, while Jobs continued to receive his $1 annual salary. The company said its market capitalization had risen from less than $2 billion to more than $16 billion over the preceding two and a half years. Apple's filings confirm the aircraft was transferred to Jobs in 2001.
Jobs modeled the jet on the Gulfstream belonging to his friend Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder. He objected to the separate open and close buttons, surrounded by polished stainless steel, on an interior cabin door, and wanted a single button that switched between the two functions, finished in brushed metal. Ellison later conceded that Jobs's modifications were improvements.
After Jobs died in 2011, the aircraft passed to his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs. Former Apple designer Jony Ive, who had worked closely with Jobs and helped shape the aircraft's interior, subsequently acquired it from her at a substantial discount. By February 2020, LoveFrom Inc., the design company Ive founded after leaving Apple, appeared in historical registration records as the registrant.
The aircraft has carried several registration identities, including N2N, N586GV and N51VE, and a further change to N1112P was authorized a few months ago.
Industry impact & what to watch
Registration paperwork is the main public trace of how a used large-cabin jet changes hands. A certificate shows who is registered and when it was issued, but not when money moved or on what terms, so the story of a sale is usually assembled afterward from several filings.
Aircraft tied to well-known owners also illustrate how provenance can sit alongside the ordinary mechanics of the pre-owned market. Here the chain runs from a corporate bonus to a founder, to his widow, to a designer, and now to an investment vehicle, with each step visible mainly through registration records and Apple's own filings.
The next point that would settle the picture is the registration history itself: whether the N1112P change authorized a few months ago is carried onto the aircraft, and which identity it ends up flying under.
