Trump and Musk Knew Exactly Who Jeffrey Epstein Was

Elon Musk is very insistent that he never visited Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean. That may very well be true. There is nothing in the millions of Epstein’s emails to suggest that Musk did—or, for that matter, that he ever flew on the “Lolita Express,” the alleged sex trafficker’s infamous jet.

“I had very little correspondence with Epstein and declined repeated invitations to go to his island or fly on his ‘Lolita Express,’” Musk wrote on his X platform on Friday, not long after emails between him and Epstein were released by the federal government, “but was well aware that some email correspondence with him could be misinterpreted and used by detractors to smear my name.”

There’s always a “but.” While there’s very little direct correspondence between Musk and Epstein—at least that we know of today, with millions of files still unreleased—it’s easy to see why Musk felt the need to explain himself. In 2012 and 2013, he wrote to Epstein on several occasions asking about visiting his island. In one email, Musk inquired which night would feature the “wildest party.” In another, he initially begged off attending a party Epstein was throwing during the United Nations General Assembly because he thought it meant it would be full of diplomats. Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from someone under 18, responded that “there is no one over 25 and all very cute.”

The email chain ends there, and there’s no evidence Musk attended the party or any other event Epstein hosted. For Musk, that’s enough. He has continued his grandstanding about Epstein, demanding the federal government do more to prosecute people in the files—but not him, of course. “When there is at least one arrest, some justice will be done. If not, this is all performative,” he wrote. “Nothing but a distraction.” The distraction he is referring to, it seems, is his relationship with Epstein.

But the emails between Musk and Epstein are far from exculpatory. It’s obvious from Musk’s limited correspondence with Epstein that he was fully aware of Epstein’s reputation. Epstein was a guy who reliably threw parties full of “girls.” When, at one point, Epstein informed Musk that the “ratio” on his island may make Talulah Riley, Musk’s wife at the time, uncomfortable, the tech billionaire was blunt: “Ratio is not a problem for Talulah.”

Musk, it seems, had few concerns about corresponding or—whether or not they ever actually hung out—associating with Epstein given his reputation. To the contrary, it seems to have been the point of associating with Epstein. Of course, the millions of emails released last week make it clear that a lot of other powerful people, most of them men, felt the exact same way. There is a sense of admiration, sometimes even envy, in their correspondence with Epstein. Mostly, though, they thought he was a good hang—not in spite of his reputation but because of it.

Musk’s defense is notable because it mirrors the one offered by Donald Trump of his yearslong friendship with Epstein, which began in the late 1980s and ended in the mid-2000s. But Trump’s relationship with Epstein was not limited to correspondence. Indeed, given Trump’s relative paucity of grown-up friendships, one could credibly make the case that his relationship with Epstein was one of the deepest of his adult life. (Epstein told the journalist Michael Wolff—whose disturbingly close relationship with his “source” is detailed throughout the files—that Trump was once his “closest friend.”) “I’ve known Jeff [Epstein] for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” Around the same time, he sent Epstein a birthday card featuring a hand-drawn silhouette. “A pal is a wonderful thing,” Trump wrote. “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

Trump has since suggested that his relationship with Epstein deteriorated when he learned that his friend was a creep—specifically when Epstein attempted to “steal” a young masseuse (possibly Virginia Giuffre, who recently published a memoir detailing Epstein’s abuse and who died by suicide last year) who worked at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. Trump’s allies have repeated that claim ad nauseam, also claiming that Epstein was “banned” from the club at the same time. There’s no evidence that’s true. (Epstein, it seems, was never a dues-paying member of Mar-a-Lago but was treated as one, given his close relationship with Trump.) Instead, the best contemporaneous evidence of their falling out suggests that it was over real estate, not Epstein’s treatment of women: The two engaged in a bitter battle to buy a historic Palm Beach property in 2004 that ultimately destroyed their friendship.

That real estate, not misogyny or criminal sexual activity, destroyed Trump and Epstein’s relationship makes sense because it’s clear from public comments and private correspondence that Trump was aware that Epstein was a creep—he just thought it was cool. Every day with him, after all, was a “wonderful secret.” The fact that Epstein liked women on the “younger side” was something to toast. The extent to which Trump participated in Epstein’s criminal activity is not clear. But what is obvious is that he was well aware of who his friend was, and that it was worth celebrating. He liked Epstein because he liked young girls and was frequently surrounded by them. Which is also why, years after Epstein and Trump’s falling out, Musk wrote to him to ask when he would be throwing the “wildest” party.

If you are looking for people to prosecute, as Musk claims he is, the millions of documents released by the Department of Justice have many leads but few obvious open and shut cases. What they show instead is something different—but similarly repugnant. Again and again, powerful men—Musk and Wolff, certainly, but also Bill Gates, Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel, Prince Andrew, New York Giants owner Steve Tisch, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and recently named CBS contributor Peter Attia among them—seek out Epstein. There is no indication in their emails that they are unaware of Epstein’s reputation or status as a convicted sex offender. In some cases—Prince Andrew being perhaps the most notable—the friendship appears to be built around that fact. But in others, it’s clear that Epstein’s correspondents simply don’t care. Instead, Epstein is a confidant, someone to talk with about business, the state of the world, and, in many cases, girls. He’s not a pariah but a valued member of a social circle that wields enormous power in the world.

The handful of examples of people turning down Epstein only make that clearer. (When The Daily Beast founder Tina Brown was asked to attend a dinner with Epstein, Woody Allen, and Prince Andrew in 2010, she replied, “What the fuck is this … ? The paedophile’s ball?”) The general public may not have known who Epstein was, but elites did. They knew he was a criminal sex offender and that he was a creep—and that’s precisely why so many of them kept hanging out with him.

Musk is pushing for “prosecutions” for cynical reasons: Doing so downplays his own relationship with Epstein by drawing attention to people who engaged in real criminal conduct. He’s right on this much: It is absurd that no one has been prosecuted as a result of the millions of documents that federal law enforcement officers have acquired in the Epstein investigation. Still, Musk’s demand is somewhat beside the point. The millions of emails released by the Department of Justice mostly don’t show glaring criminal conduct or detail the inner workings of what Musk alleges: a sinister and sophisticated cabal of pedophiles.

Indeed, most of the emails are quite banal. But what they do show is nevertheless extremely bleak: They depict a global, but primarily American, elite–one that Musk and Trump belong to—that openly embraced and celebrated a man who preyed on underage girls. The people corresponding with him quite literally ran the country’s government and economy, or are doing so today. When they wanted to hang out with girls or attend a wild party, they got in touch with their pal Jeff. And they didn’t stop until he got thrown in prison—a second time.