“Time to drop the really big bomb: Trump is in the Epstein files,” Elon Musk posted on the social media platform X on Thursday in a move that could potentially sever his close friendship with US President Donald Trump.
From key ally to the US president to arch enemy almost overnight, Musk has fallen out with Trump over the president’s “Big Beautiful Bill”.
Musk, who funded Trump’s election campaign and led the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has just recently departed the agency and the Trump administration, as he increasingly publicly criticised what he said was a “disgusting abomination” that will “burden American citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”
Following a series of tweets on the matter, Musk went so far as to accuse Trump without providing evidence of being included in the infamous files — which Trump himself demanded be released, as they purportedly contain the names of a number of high-profile political and business figures in the US and abroad linked to a sexual exploitation scheme involving minors.
Trump, whose administration promised to release the Epstein Files, has rejected Musk’s allegations, telling reporters Musk had “lost his mind”. There is no evidence of his participation in illegal activities with Jeffrey Epstein.
What are the Epstein Files?
An influential US financier, Epstein came under significant public scrutiny after he was accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls in the early 2000s, but wound up serving just 13 months in jail.
He was indicted on federal charges in New York in 2019, more than a decade after he secretly struck a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to dispose of similar charges of sex trafficking.
The case has drawn widespread attention because of Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell’s links to royals, presidents and billionaires. Maxwell herself is the daughter of the late British media tycoon Robert Maxwell, who once owned the New York Daily News.
Over the years, thousands of pages of records have been released through lawsuits, Epstein’s criminal dockets, public disclosures and Freedom of Information Act requests.
In January 2024, a court unsealed the final batch of a trove of documents that had been collected as evidence in a lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre.
Much of the material, including transcripts of victim interviews and old police reports, had already been publicly known.
They included mentions of Trump, former US President Bill Clinton, Britain’s Prince Andrew and magician David Copperfield, as well as testimony from one victim who said she met Michael Jackson at Epstein’s Florida home, but nothing untoward happened with him.
The previously released files included a 2016 deposition in which an accuser recounted spending several hours with Epstein at Trump’s Atlantic City casino.
However, the documents did not state whether she had actually met Trump or accused him of any wrongdoing.
How did Trump and Epstein know each other?
Trump and Epstein have been friends since the late 1980s, when both men were part of the socialite circles in New York. Over the years, the two have partied at Mar-a-Lago, a Palm Beach estate that Trump purchased in 1995, and attended a Victoria’s Secret show together.
The US president has said in the past that he thought Epstein was a “terrific guy,” but that they later had a falling out in 2004, reportedly over a botched real estate deal.
“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,” Trump told New York Magazine in 2002.
Trump has since said he “wasn’t a fan” of Epstein. According to media reports, since Epstein’s sexual exploitation ring became public, Trump offered support and provided evidence against his once-friend.
Epstein did not hold back since the two fell out, either.
Trump biographer Michael Wolff last year released tapes of interviews with Epstein, in which he called the US president “functionally illiterate” and a “horrible human being”.
The US president’s team has rejected allegations of any connection between the two in recent years, stating Wolff — whose tapes showed Epstein knew some details of the inner workings of the first Trump administration between 2017 and 2021 — was “a disgraced writer who routinely fabricates lies”.
Musk has also been connected to Epstein in the past. In 2019, US media outlet Buzzfeed News alleged Musk, together with Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, attended a dinner with Epstein in 2011, well after the allegations surrounding his involvement in the sexual abuse of women and children became publicly known.
Although he does not feature prominently in any of the photos from the “billionaires’ dinner” organised by intellectual club Edge in Long Beach, Epstein can be seen in the background of one of the images, still available online.
In 2014, Musk was photographed with Epstein’s partner Maxwell at the Vanity Fair Oscars party. Musk responded to questions over the photograph, saying he did not know Maxwell and he was “photobombed”.
Musk has also previously called Epstein a “dumb crook”.
Epstein died in apparent suicide in August 2019 while awaiting trial on criminal charges at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.
The US Justice Department’s Inspector General said that his suicide was the end result of “combination of negligence, misconduct and outright job performance failures” by the US Federal Bureau of Prisons and jail workers.
The watchdog report found no evidence of foul play.
Maxwell was sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking related to her role in Epstein’s abuse and exploitation scheme. She lost her appeal in September 2024.
While the US president has faced multiple sexual assault accusations in the past, he has rejected all allegations as part of media bias or political smear campaigns.
In December 2024, a judgment was upheld against Trump for defamation and sexual abuse of writer E Jean Carroll in 1995 or 1996. The sentencing carried a penalty of $5 million (€4.4m).