“It is incorrect to say that Epstein ever advised Elon on anything,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Musk, Keely Sulprizio, said Monday.When I contacted Mr. Epstein, he readily agreed to an interview.
After his arrest and suicide, I’m left to wonder: What might he have told me?The Day Jeffrey Epstein Told Me He Had Dirt on Powerful People Then early this year Mr. Epstein called to ask if I’d be interested in writing his biography.
Epstein avoided specifics about his work for Tesla. )If he was reticent about Tesla, he was more at ease discussing his interest in young women. )Several months passed.
Next to the imposing double doors was a polished brass plaque with the initials “J.E.” and a bell.
He said he’d spoken to the Saudis about possibly investing in Tesla, but he wouldn’t provide any specifics or names. He said he was doing some foreign-currency trading.Behind him was a table covered with more photographs. He wouldn’t say who that person was. His very notoriety, he said, was what made so many people willing to confide in him.
He sounded almost plaintive. This seems plausible: I initially walked past the building, on East 71st Street, because it looked more like an embassy or museum than a private home. The crown prince had visited him many times, and they spoke often, Mr. Epstein said.He led me to a large room at the rear of the house.
Musk and Tesla vehemently deny this.
He was trim and energetic, perhaps from all the yoga he said he was practicing. Mr. Epstein took a seat at the head, and I sat to his left.
He told me that he had good reason to be cryptic: Once it became public that he was advising the company, he’d have to stop doing so, because he was “radioactive.” He predicted that everyone at Tesla would deny talking to him or being his friend.He said this was something he’d become used to, even though it didn’t stop people from visiting him, coming to his dinner parties or asking him for money. There were calls for Mr. Musk to relinquish his position as Tesla’s chairman and for Tesla to recruit more independent directors. I had contacted him because my colleagues and I had heard a rumor that he was advising Tesla’s embattled chief executive, Elon Musk, who The Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into Mr. Musk’s remarks, which moved markets but didn’t appear to have much basis in fact.
He pointed to a full-length shot of a man in traditional Arab dress. (I don’t know if these dinners actually happened. He said that criminalizing sex with teenage girls was a cultural aberration and that at times in history it was perfectly acceptable.
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.Mr. He did have at least some ties to Mr. Musk — “Ghislaine simply inserted herself behind him in a photo he was posing for without his knowledge,” Ms. Sulprizio, the spokeswoman for Mr. Musk, said.It seemed clear Mr. Epstein had embellished his role in the Tesla situation to enhance his own importance and gain attention — something that now seems to have been a pattern.About a week after that interview, Mr. Epstein called and asked if I’d like to have dinner that Saturday with him and Woody Allen. Why would Mr. Epstein want a reporter’s first impression to be that of a young woman opening his door?The woman led me up a monumental staircase to a room on the second floor overlooking the Frick museum across the street. Mr. Wolff and a spokeswoman for Mr. Allen didn’t respond to requests for comment on Monday. He said people in Silicon Valley had a reputation for being geeky workaholics, but that was far from the truth: They were hedonistic and regular users of recreational drugs. Displaying photos of celebrities who had been caught up in sex scandals of their own also struck me as odd.Mr.
Everyone, he suggested, has secrets and, he added, compared with his own, they seemed innocuous. While I can’t say anything he said was an explicit lie, much of what he said was vague or speculative and couldn’t be proved or disproved. After a few minutes, Mr. Epstein bounded in, dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt, shook my hand and said he was a big fan of my work. A few weeks after that, he asked me to join him for dinner with the author Michael Wolff and Donald J. Trump’s former adviser, Steve Bannon. Almost exactly a year ago, on Aug. 16, 2018, I visited Jeffrey Epstein at his cavernous Manhattan mansion.. People confided in him without feeling awkward or embarrassed, he claimed.I’d never met Mr. Epstein before. At the same time, he seemed unapologetic. (That was why, Mr. Epstein told me without any trace of irony, he was considering becoming a minister so that his acquaintances would be confident that their conversations would be kept confidential.
I sensed that what he really wanted was companionship. Already leery of any further ties to him, I was relieved I could say that I was already busy with another book.That was the last I heard from him.
Given Mr. Epstein’s past, this struck me as far too close to the line. After I rang, the door was opened by a young woman, her blond hair pulled back in a chignon, who greeted me with what sounded like an Eastern European accent.I can’t say how old she was, but my guess would be late teens or perhaps 20.
Mr. Bannon has said he didn’t attend. I asked him if that person would talk to me, and he said he’d ask. (I consider that condition to have lapsed with his death.
Epstein then meandered into a discussion of other prominent names in technology circles.
“That’s M.B.S.,” he said, referring to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. It was quiet, the lighting dim, and the air-conditioning was set very low. He said he’d witnessed prominent tech figures taking drugs and arranging for sex (Mr. Epstein stressed that he never drank or used drugs of any kind).I kept trying to steer the conversation back to Tesla, but Mr. Epstein remained evasive. He was undeniably charismatic.Before we left the room he took me to a wall covered with framed photographs. He had a computer, a small blackboard and a phone to his right.
When I pressed him on the purported email from Mr. Musk, he said the email wasn’t from Mr. Musk himself, but from someone very close to him.
I declined. He later said the person declined; I doubt he asked.When I later reflected on our interview, I was struck by how little information Mr. Epstein had actually provided.
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