It was the week of Kimbal Musk’s 40th birthday in September 2012, and invitations went out for his party that Saturday, for 7 p.m. at New York’s Four Seasons restaurant on East 57th Street. As invitees learned the password to get in—“pussy riot”—via email, the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was scheming. Epstein and an associate had hand-picked a woman he believed would interest Kimbal Musk; coordinated club reservations through an associate who promised “as many girls” as “needed;” and organized a lunch the following day at his Upper East Side Manhattan mansion for Kimbal, his older brother, Elon Musk, and Elon’s then-wife, Talulah Riley, according to dozens of Department of Justice emails released this month. (Kimbal Musk later apologized to Epstein for not attending the lunch, in another email released by the DOJ.)
“I told him that you are coming with [Sarah] and that [Kimbal] might want to ditch his ex/or current to be,” Boris Nikolic, a close associate and who Epstein describes as a “good friend”in an email, reported in an email to Epstein ahead of the party.
“So please prepare [Sarah],” Nikolic added, with a winking emoji. (While many of the victim’s names were not entirely redacted in the Department of Justice’s initial release of thousands of names, Fortune is changing the names of the women mentioned in this story in an effort to protect their identities.)
After the party and the lunch, Sarah and Kimbal Musk would go on to date for the next several months. Throughout that time, Epstein kept close tabs on Kimbal Musk’s relationship. He directed Sarah’s involvement and her travel with him, according to dozens of emails from the Epstein files—seemingly in an attempt to get closer to Kimbal Musk’s brother, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who had just made Forbes’ billionaires list the year the relationship began, 2012. (Kimbal currently holds board seats at both companies) And after the lunch at Epstein’s Manhattan house, Epstein would say to others that he and Elon Musk “were talking all the time,” according to a person who worked at Epstein’s home at the time.
The emails offer a revealing window into the tactics Epstein used to build his network of the rich and powerful, using women under his control like pieces on a chessboard. (All of the emails referenced in this article were part of the vast cache of files related to the Epstein case released by the DOJ earlier this month.)
The elaborate gameplan involved identifying powerful targets like the Musk brothers, using women and intermediaries to forge stronger ties with the target, and then relentlessly trying to insert himself into their circles. Throughout it all, Epstein and his associates sent and received status updates on the progress of the project, according to the Department of Justice files. Kimbal and Elon Musk are two of dozens of high-profile businessmen whose correspondence has emerged in the new batch of emails and documents, and who have tried to distance themselves from the disgraced financier.
According to a former staffer at Epstein’s home, the catered lunch the week of Kimbal Musk’s birthday fit a pattern. “There would be a magician or a movie actor, a business person like Musk or Gates, and beautiful women from his entourage,” the staffer said. (Fortune spoke with the former employee on condition of anonymity to protect their privacy.)
Inside the house, the staffer said, was a tightly controlled environment for Epstein’s assistants. Emails and news reports show these women were often women in their early 20s, many from Eastern Europe. “There were myriads of abuse on a pretty much daily basis when there was no one around,” the staffer said. “He would switch assistants for abuse.” (One email from Jeffrey Epstein refers to Sarah as one of his assistants.)
As has now been thoroughly documented, these women worked with Epstein expecting modeling or business opportunities that in many cases never materialized, and would often become dependent on him for a visa, housing, or money. The longer anyone stayed with Epstein, the staffer said, “the more you’re trapped.”
While Kimbal Musk’s ties to Epstein have been reported in news articles, a close look at the complete sequence of events and emails in the relationship with Sarah, along with firsthand details from an Epstein staffer at the time, reveals a far more nuanced picture. It’s unclear whether Kimbal Musk, who was recently divorced at the time, understood the true nature of his relationship with Sarah, or Epstein’s behind-the-scenes involvement in it.
Neither Kimbal Musk nor Elon Musk responded to Fortune’s multiple requests for comment by press time. Kimbal said in a statement on X earlier this week that the woman he started dating in 2012 was 30 years old when the relationship began and referred to Epstein as a “demon.”
“My only meeting with that demon was in his New York office during the day. I never met with him again and I never went to his island,” he said, adding: “My heart goes out to the many victims of Jeffrey Epstein, as it does for all who have suffered any kind of sexual abuse or harassment.”
Sarah did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Her attorney, Brad Edwards, said that “the fact that this personal aspect of her life is now being publicized as a consequence of DOJ’s errors in redacting victim names is causing so many victims so much pain.” He added: “For the public, the gossip gives people something to talk about; however, the fact that Jeffrey Epstein’s victims are real people whose privacy is being obliterated is somehow being completely forgotten.”
‘Controlling every step’
By the time she began dating Kimbal Musk, Sarah had already spent approximately six years working under Epstein’s close eye and control, the emails in the DOJ cache suggest.
Emails suggest that, at the time, she lived in one of the many New York apartments Epstein maintained for associates. Emails also suggest that she had most of her movements approved or at least monitored by him. When she fell ill, Epstein was updated; when she needed to travel, he paid for her tickets.
“He would control all the women’s schedules in his network,” says the person who worked for Epstein during that period, noting that women were not allowed to travel without his approval. “He was controlling every step,” they added.
When Sarah began dating Kimbal Musk, the relationship itself was also closely monitored by Epstein, with her or other people in his orbit updating Epstein on Kimbal’s invitations for her to meet before his “week long boys trip” and travel with him to New York, London, and Los Angeles.
“The universe is conspiring for us to spend more time together,” Kimbal wrote Sarah in one email that she forwarded on to Epstein.
Epstein received detailed copies of her schedule showing when she was with Kimbal and when she was “FREE.” In one exchange, Sarah told Epstein he had “the final call” on whether she should travel with Kimbal Musk in late 2012 or stay with Epstein instead; he instructed her to stay with Kimbal Musk through Thanksgiving and “go somewhere romantic,” like Morocco, before returning to his island.
On February 9, about a week after the DOJ released the documents, Kimbal Musk wrote on X that in 2012, he had met the woman “through a friend. Epstein did not introduce us.”
Two weeks after the party in 2012, however, Kimbal Musk sent an email to Epstein and Nikolic, thanking the two for “connecting” him with Sarah. “I believe you both played a role” Kimbal wrote, along with a smiley face. Nikolic responded telling Kimbal Musk to “be nice” to Sarah, adding that Epstein “goes crazy when someone mistreats his girls/friends.” (Nikolic did not respond to requests for comment for this story.)
“Message received wide and clear,” Kimbal Musk responded.
‘Did your brother tell you?’
Epstein wasted no time in trying to leverage Kimbal Musk’s new romance to his advantage, and nudge his way into Elon Musk’s orbit.
A few weeks after the birthday party, Epstein emailed Elon directly to let him know that he would be seeing “your brother and his new romance” in New York the following week (Elon Musk said he would not be there at the same time).
That same fall, the two men began exchanging messages about a possible trip to Epstein’s now-notorious private Caribbean island. On Christmas morning in 2012, Elon Musk wrote: “Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit 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 I’m looking for.” The plans never panned out.
In Feb. 2013, Epstein once again brought up Musk’s brother. “Did your brother tell you about [Sarah’s] pregnant joke,” he asked before inquiring if Elon Musk was going to an upcoming TED conference. This time, Elon bit, saying that he wouldn’t be at TED for long, but if Epstein “would like to talk,” it’d be best to do it at the SpaceX factory near Long Beach, California.
The emails suggest that Epstein brought three of his “girls” to visit the facility on February 25th, 2013, and thanked Elon for the tour after. “You would have had fun at xmas,” Epstein wrote in the exchange. “I see :),” Elon responded.
Elon Musk denied in 2020 that Epstein had ever visited SpaceX, when he wrote on X that “to the best our knowledge, he never toured SpaceX. Don’t know where that comes from.”
The emails show, however, that Epstein wrote to Musk more than 50 times, in total—congratulating him on a successful rocket launch, recommending stimulants, or asking if his workload was getting better. They also show that Musk repeatedly brushed off Epstein: He often gave terse responses, never reciprocated invites, nor did he ask Epstein how he was doing.
In response to a screenshot of an email he sent in the files, Elon posted on X earlier this month that “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island so many times that eventually I just blocked him.”
A breakup damages the connection
In April 2013, Epstein would lose his “in.” In an email from that month, Kimbal broke up with Sarah, writing that he was busy with his sister moving in with him and weighed down by managing his relationship with his ex-wife. He asked if she’d be interested in keeping things more casual and going back a step to “just dating.”
“We know how much we like each other,” Kimbal Musk wrote. “But I am just not able to do a real relationship right now… We would see each other on weekends and when we can and focus it on fun stuff,” Kimbal wrote. Sarah forwarded this email to two people, one of them being Epstein, and the other being restaurant mogul Steve Hanson, who appears in the emails to have occasionally discussed Sarah’s career with her and Epstein. (Hanson had not responded to Fortune’s requests for comment before press time) “Thoughts? I just don’t think I’d EVER be a priority,” Sarah asks the two. Epstein responded: “ok, good news now i have you back again, full time,” telling her to come to the “ranch”; likely referring to his New Mexico Zorro Ranch.
Hanson chastised Sarah in her response for giving too much “too quick” and staying with Kimbal Musk for so long. “Leave NOW. In 1 week we will have. A plan for u,” Hanson wrote. “U have to control this. It’s a game. Your losing. You’re not even playing.”
Epstein also asked Sarah where she was, believing she was with Kimbal Musk in Los Angeles. But she reminded him that “you said to stay” with her family during her grandfather’s funeral. She added she would “prefer not to stay w Kimbal if we’re ‘dating.’”
Three days later, Epstein pointed out in an email how he had lost the connection to Elon: He wrote to someone to instruct them to skip that year’s Milken Institute conference and fly straight to New York. Since Sarah “broke up with kimbal therefore no elon and most of the fun things will be this afternoon,” he wrote. Epstein sent two emails to Elon: one that said he was staying at the Hotel Bel-Air, which Elon ignored, and another—“sorry to have missed you”—to which Musk replied that he’d only been at the Milken conference “for a few hours.”
Epstein would continue to try to maintain the connection, however: emailing Elon about a former minister of defense of Israel, and with invitations to a visit in Santa Fe, breakfast, or to come visit his New York mansion during the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. Most of them received muted responses or no response at all.
Elon Musk did initiate the planning around dates for visiting the island over the holidays in 2013, though in that case it was Epstein who backed away last minute due to his “schedule.” Epstein wrote: “I was really looking forward to finally spending some time together with just fun as the agenda.”
Overall, apart from what Epstein described as a “wild” dinner with Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Reid Hoffman, it appears Elon Musk never attended any other event with Epstein. The former staffer who worked in Epstein’s home didn’t recall ever seeing Elon Musk again after the 2012 lunch.
But behind the scenes, Epstein appeared to still be coordinating at least one other woman’s interactions with Kimbal Musk.
In June of that same year, Epstein wrote to a woman, Alice (name changed), who, in May, appeared to be angered about Epstein suggesting that she would give a massage in exchange for personal help. “I am not a massage girl…If I would know about everything before, wouldn’t even go for a meeting… I don’t do these exchanges..It is dirty,” Alice wrote.
Epstein replied that “I gave another girl to kimball and he is thrilled.” (Epstein would often misspel ‘Kimbal’ and another names and words in his correspondence)
Legitimizing him
Epstein never laid out in emails what precisely he was trying to achieve by getting closer to Kimbal and Elon Musk. But his attempted befriending of the brothers was in line with how Epstein amassed his own fortune—by buddying up to people with money, maintaining complex relationships with them, and sometimes utilizing leverage to stay in their orbit.
Some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful individuals continued to correspond with and spend time with Epstein even after he had to register as a sex offender in 2008. These relationships became heavily scrutinized after the Miami Herald published its explosive investigation in 2018 about how Epstein had managed to evade a potential lifetime prison sentence, and after the Department of Justice later charged Epstein with sex trafficking minors in 2019. People questioned why so many powerful and wealthy individuals continued to spend so much time with him and how they had lent credibility to the man.
None of the emails directly suggest that Kimbal Musk knew Sarah was employed by Epstein or that he knew she was giving regular updates to Epstein about their relationship and travel plans, and getting advice from others. But in the emails from October 2012, written shortly after Kimbal and Sarah had been introduced, Nikolic told Kimbal to “be nice” to Sarah, as she was one of Epstein’s “girls/friends.”
Both Musk brothers have pushed back vehemently against speculation about their ties to Epstein, and Elon Musk said he would cover legal fees of any victim who “speaks the truth” about Epstein and was subsequently sued.
The vast new DOJ email trove reveals little in terms of explaining why so many eminent people continued to correspond with Epstein after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution and soliciting a child for prostitution, even after it became widely known. Those interactions, however, had implications: Epstein was able to burnish his reputation in the eyes of women looking for a better life—many of whom would later become his victims.
For powerful people who spent time with Jeffrey Epstein, “even if they claim they never knew any abuse happened to a lot of young women from Eastern Europe—let’s say they never questioned that,” the staffer from Epstein’s home said. “They would legitimize someone like him.”
The post ‘I gave another girl to Kimbal’: Inside Epstein’s honey-trap plan targeting Elon Musk through his brother appeared first on Fortune.
