Another billionaire could soon be subpoenaed in a lawsuit over Jeffrey Epstein.
On Monday, the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands filed a motion indicating it was attempting to get records from Tesla and Twitter mogul Elon Musk as part of its litigation against JPMorgan, which it has accused of facilitating Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring.
In the legal filing, lawyers for the Caribbean territory said the bank profited “from the business opportunities referred to JPMorgan by Epstein” and that Musk “is a high-net-worth individual who Epstein may have referred or attempted to refer to JPMorgan.”
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The Daily Beast has reached out to Musk for comment.
The U.S. Virgin Islands says it issued a subpoena to Musk on April 28 but has been unable to personally serve him with it. The government is requesting the Manhattan federal judge overseeing the case grant alternative service via Tesla’s registered agent.
“The Government made good-faith attempts to obtain an address for Mr. Musk, including hiring an investigative firm to search public records databases for possible addresses,” the motion states, adding that discovery in the case is scheduled to end at the end of the month.
The subpoena, attached to the new legal filing, requests documents showing communications between Musk and JPMorgan “regarding Epstein or Epstein’s role with respect to Your accounts, transactions, or financial management.”
It also seeks communications between Musk and Epstein regarding JPMorgan, documents reflecting fees paid to Epstein or JPMorgan, and records tied to “Epstein’s involvement in human trafficking and/or his procurement of girls or women for commercial sex.”
As The Daily Beast reported, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are facing similar subpoenas as part of the case, as are billionaires Thomas Pritzker and Mortimer Zuckerman, and Michael Ovitz, a venture capitalist and former Hollywood agent.
The Virgin Islands, and an Epstein victim referred to as Jane Doe, are suing JPMorgan for continuing to keep Epstein as a client despite numerous red flags over his trafficking scheme. The litigation has unearthed new revelations about powerful people in Epstein’s orbit—in particular, JPMorgan executive Jes Staley, who is accused of sexually abusing Doe.
It’s unclear what information Musk could have on Epstein.
Musk’s alleged ties to Epstein and his convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell have come back to haunt him in recent years. After Twitter users bashed him for being photographed with Maxwell at a 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar party, he claimed he was “photobombed.”
But last fall, a report surfaced that the duo chatted that night and that Maxwell urged Musk to destroy the internet and asked why aliens hadn’t communicated with humanity.
Meanwhile, Musk’s ex-wife, Talulah Riley, tweeted that she and Musk once visited Epstein’s New York townhouse “as part of an itinerary of appointments.” (The tweet was aimed at dispelling rumors that Maxwell procured her as a bride for Musk.)
Riley said she and Musk would “travel constantly” with a “contact/minder/guide.”
“This trip was no different,” she added of the Epstein meeting. “There was a man taking us round the city and introducing us to various people.”
In 2019, Vanity Fair reported that Musk introduced Epstein to Facebook honcho Mark Zuckerberg at a dinner hosted by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman in Palo Alto.
At the time, Musk told the magazine, “I don’t recall introducing Epstein to anyone, as I don’t know the guy well enough to do so, Epstein is obviously a creep and Zuckerberg is not a friend of mine.” He added that he had visited Epstein’s mansion for about 30 minutes with Riley, who “was curious about meeting this strange person for a novel she was writing.”
“We did not see anything inappropriate at all, apart from weird art,” Musk concluded. “He tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined.”
New York Times columnist James Stewart also previously alluded to a possible relationship between Epstein and Musk, writing in 2019 that he reached out to Epstein the year before over rumors “that he was advising Tesla’s embattled chief executive, Elon Musk, who was in trouble after announcing on Twitter that he had lined up the funding to take Tesla private.”
“There were calls for Mr. Musk to relinquish his position as Tesla’s chairman and for Tesla to recruit more independent directors,” Stewart wrote. “I’d heard that Mr. Epstein was compiling a list of candidates at Mr. Musk’s behest—and that Mr. Epstein had an email from Mr. Musk authorizing the search for a new chairman.”
Musk adamantly denied this assertion, and a spokeswoman for the billionaire said: “It is incorrect to say that Epstein ever advised Elon on anything.”
In 2020, Insider reported that Epstein introduced Elon Musk’s brother, Kimbal, to a woman in his circle who lived in a Manhattan building where Epstein housed models. Kimbal and the woman dated from 2011 to 2012, according to the report.
Insider noted that as a result of this relationship, Epstein and his entourage snagged a private tour of Elon Musk’s SpaceX in California in 2012.
An attorney for SpaceX, however, denied Epstein ever set foot on the property.
