WASHINGTON — Elon Musk has taken down his tweet claiming President Trump was implicated in the still-unreleased “[Jeffrey] Epstein files” in a first sign of de-escalation since the titanic blow-up between the powerful men this week.
“Time to drop the really big bomb,” Musk, 53, had posted Thursday on X to his more than 220 million followers after a multi-day tirade against the president’s spending bill working its way through Congress.
“@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files.That is the real reason they have not been made public,” he alleged. “Have a nice day, DJT!”
In February, the DOJ released more than 100 pages of Epstein’s phone contacts and flight logs related to sex trafficking charges against the financier, once a friend of powerful politicians like former President Bill Clinton, businessmen such as Bill Gates and Trump himself.
Epstein’s former lawyer came out on Thursday to dispel any rumors that the president was implicated.
“I was hired to lead Jeffrey Epstein’s defense as his criminal lawyer 9 days before he died,” attorney David Schoen posted on X. “He sought my advice for months before that. I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he had no information to hurt President Trump. I specifically asked him!”
White House aides have noted the president’s association with Epstein will likely resurface in a fuller release of files but don’t believe any alleged wrongdoing by Trump will be revealed.
“This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. “The president is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again.”
On Friday, Trump speculated that the world’s richest man had “lost his mind” as evidenced by the tweeting spree.
Epstein and the future president were photographed and videotaped together attending parties in the 1990s, and Trump told New York magazine in 2002 that his acquaintance was a “terrific guy” who “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
That was six years before Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting sex from a minor, for which he was sentenced to 18 months in prison in a cushy plea deal cut with Florida authorities.
Trump had reportedly banned his former associate from Mar-a-Lago in 2007 over an incident with a club member’s teen daughter.
On the 2024 campaign trail, he also said he’d have “no problem” releasing more official files related to Epstein if elected — including the deceased pedophile’s so-called “client list.”
“I don’t think — I mean, I’m not involved,” Trump said in September 2024. “I never went to his island, fortunately, but a lot of people did.”
A source familiar with the spat between the tech billionaire and the president noted: “If Elon truly thought the President was more deeply involved with Epstein, why did he hangout with him for 6 months and say he ‘loves him as much as a straight man can love a straight man?’”
The DOJ files do not contain any new revelations as Trump was already known to have flown on Epstein’s private jet at least seven times between October 1993 and May 1994.
Those flight logs — contained in what’s been referred to as the “little black book” — became public during the trial of the trial of Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in 2021.
Another version of the book is currently being auctioned off and contains at least five entries “highlighted in yellow,” one of which is Trump and all of which “are well-recognized financial and industrial figures,” according to the online webpage of Alexander Historical Auctions.
Internet sleuths have speculated that some of Epstein’s high-powered clients may have also taken trips down to the financier’s private island Little St. James in the Caribbean, where young women and underage girls were allegedly abused.
Epstein exploited more than 250 underage girls at his homes in New York, Florida and other locations, according to the Justice Department, before his arrest on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019.
Prison guards later found him dead, with bedsheets around his neck, in a New York City federal detention center on Aug. 10, 2019. Investigators later ruled the death a suicide.
Once among the closest allies to Trump, Musk left behind his cost-cutting efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) just before reaching the 130-day deadline for his position as a special government employee.
Musk had indicated a desire to speak with the president Friday after the kerfuffle, but a White House spokesperson later confirmed no phone call between the onetime allies was planned.
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