“No one pushed harder than me to have the Epstein files released and I’m glad that has finally happened,” Elon Musk wrote on Saturday. He also now claims, “I had very little correspondence with Epstein and declined repeated invitations to go to his island or fly on his ‘Lolita Express’, but was well aware that some email correspondence with him could be misinterpreted and used by detractors to smear my name.”
Sorry but “misinterpreted”? Even if you do your absolute damndest to read this guy’s freshly released Epstein emails in a positive light, what you get is the story of a tech tycoon stating unambiguously that he wanted to attend an absolute rager on a sex criminal’s private island.
“What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Elon Musk asked Jeffrey Epstein on on Nov. 25, 2012.
In 2019, Musk told Vanity Fair that in their past interactions, he had detected that Epstein was “obviously a creep.” Indeed, it wouldn’t have taken much sleuthing to pick up on this attribute of Epstein’s back in 2012. He already had a conviction on his record at the time for soliciting prostitution, and it was also widely reported in the media that the prostitution conviction stemmed from a generous plea bargain, and that the charges Epstein had been facing included sexual relations with minors.
So with that in mind, here’s what Musk and Epstein wrote as they attempted to make plans in 2012 for Musk to visit Epstein’s island with British actress Talulah Riley, Musk’s wife at the time (typos and other text issues are left in tact. I don’t want to be accused of misinterpreting):
Epstein: you are welcome to stay or just come for the day, plenty of rroom i will=send heli to get you
Musk: Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity th=s year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hi= the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is=much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what=l’m looking for.
Epstein: Understood, , I will see you on st Barth, the ratio on my island might m=ke Talilah uncomfortable
Musk: Ratio is not a problem for Talulah
It may be true that Musk declined one or more invitations to visit, but he also tried to make plans to visit multiple times. In addition to the aforementioned change, he emailed Epstein on December 14, 2013 saying he was going to be in the Virgin Islands “over the holidays,” and asked “Is there a good time to visit?” In my opinion it sort of undermines the inherent morality of rejecting offers to be taken to Epstein’s island if you also repeatedly attempt to visit Epstein’s island.
Also, his tune has changed on this I’m-the-guy-who-declined-Epstein narrative. When he phrased this in the past, he said “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED.” He may have never gone, but “REFUSED” overstates things at best.
There’s certainly no proof of a crime having been committed here, and as others have noted it looks from the emails like the timing didn’t work out for Musk to visit the island. At times Musk really did demur, but at one point it was Epstein who called off the plan. And Epstein did persist into 2014 trying to get Musk to visit the island, which it appears he never did.
But there can be little doubt that the record from earlier years shows strong evidence of a guy wanting to party his ass off on an island he knew to be overwhelmingly full of females of one age or another, and that these females were there at the pleasure of a convicted solicitor of prostitutes and accused underage sex-haver. Disputing this would involve some fascinating counter-narrative, perhaps about Musk being a mole for that anti-human-trafficking militia from the movie Sound of Freedom or something like that.
On Saturday morning, Musk did not proffer any such counter-narrative that could repair the supposedly false interpretations of his detractors—just a call for the real evildoers to be brought to justice in what is now his pinned post on X:
“What matters is not release of some subset of the Epstein files, but rather the prosecution of those who committed heinous crimes with Epstein. When there is at least one arrest, some justice will have been done. If not, this is all performative. Nothing but a distraction.”
But until he furnishes the public with a plausible excuse, his ass is hanging out quite a bit unfortunately, and he could, at the very least, spare us all from his highroading and grandstanding.
