A copy of Jeffrey Epstein’s daily schedules released Friday by House Democrats stated that Elon Musk was tentatively expected to visit Epstein’s private island in December 2014.
In one calendar entry, a typed message reads: “Reminder: Elon Musk to island Dec. 6 (is this still happening?).” The document gives no information about how the entry came about, what level of planning was involved or whether the anticipated visit ever occurred.
Musk issued a broad denial later Friday, responding on X to another account’s post on the subject: “This is false,” he wrote without elaborating.
The Epstein schedules, released Friday as part of Democrats’ push for a broader release of files, also include entries related to other powerful figures. One entry mentions a scheduled lunch with tech billionaire Peter Thiel in November 2017. Another mentions a scheduled breakfast in February 2019 with right-wing podcaster and former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon. It’s unclear if any of those meetings took place.
Musk and his representatives, as well as representatives for Thiel and Bannon, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. None of them has been accused of wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.
The New York Times previously reported that Thiel was scheduled to meet with Epstein on at least three occasions in 2014. Thiel told The Wall Street Journal in 2023 regarding their relationship: “I was rather naive, and I didn’t think enough about what Epstein’s agenda might have been.”
Bannon had a series of previously reported meetings with Epstein in the summer of 2019, when the two men filmed interviews that were intended for a Bannon-produced documentary that has never come out. Epstein’s brother, Mark, has since sought access to the unseen footage.
Musk has said that he never visited the island. He told Vanity Fair in 2019 that Epstein “tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined.” He also told the magazine that he had visited Epstein’s house in New York several years earlier but did not know Epstein well and thought he was “obviously a creep.” Musk previously met Epstein at a group dinner to discuss neuroscience, a Musk spokesperson told the magazine.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has also appeared in a widely circulated photo with Epstein’s former girlfriend and convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Musk said on X in 2020 that he didn’t know Maxwell at all and that the photo was the result of her “photobombing” him at a Vanity Fair party several years earlier.
Two lawyers for Epstein’s estate did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The schedules are the third batch of documents that House Democrats have released this year after receiving them from Epstein’s estate. They’re part of a broader push by Democrats to keep Epstein’s case in the spotlight, citing Epstein’s friendships with wealthy and powerful men including President Donald Trump. Trump has also not been accused of any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein and has said the two had a falling-out years ago.
But the issue has dogged Trump. In June, Musk weighed in on the remaining Epstein documents, alleging in an explosive online brawl with Trump that the president was “in the Epstein files,” a reference to records from various investigations and lawsuits. Musk later deleted that post from X. Trump said in July that he turned down an invitation to Epstein’s island.
Epstein died in federal custody in August 2019, a month after he was arrested and charged with one count of sex trafficking conspiracy and one count of sex trafficking. He was already a convicted sex offender, having pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring an underage girl for prostitution. He served a year in a Florida jail for the earlier charge as part of a secret agreement with federal prosecutors that later sparked an internal Justice Department investigation and congressional scrutiny.
Prosecutors say that Epstein preyed on girls as young as 14 and that he paid some to become recruiters who then provided him with additional victims.
Epstein had a sprawling compound on Little St. James in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which the FBI raided after his death. The government of the U.S. Virgin Islands has also alleged in a lawsuit against the estate that Epstein sexually abused women and underage girls at the compound.
Democrats say they’re continuing to investigate Epstein six years after his death in order to bring justice to Epstein’s victims.
Sara Guerrero, a spokesperson for Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in a statement: “It should be clear to every American that Jeffrey Epstein was friends with some of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the world. Every new document produced provides new information as we work to bring justice for the survivors and victims.”
Source link
