Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a former adviser to President Donald Trump who is now engaged in a feud with the White House, accused top MAGA ally Steve Bannon on Tuesday of being connected to the notorious convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Bannon, an ideological hard-liner on matters such as immigration, has for years attacked Musk, whose more pragmatic approach to various policies has outraged him. While Bannon, who served as a top aide to Trump during his first term, has conceded that Musk did a “brilliant” job leading the bureaucracy-slashing Department of Government Efficiency this year, he went for the jugular after the Tesla CEO had a public falling out with the White House over the president’s prized “big, beautiful,” tax cut bill.
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This week, Musk responded to Bannon’s recent calls for him to be arrested and deported with a post that sparked instant controversy on social media.
“Bannon is in the Epstein files,” Musk said in a post to X after previously alleging that Trump himself is named in the files.
The files surround the now-deceased Epstein’s connections to powerful political figures and other prominent leaders. Epstein has often been accused of brandishing sex as a weapon to blackmail power players in his inner circle by offering them illicit sex with minors at private locations such as his notorious “Epstein Island.”
Epstein was first investigated for sex crimes in 2005, leading to a yearslong inquiry into his criminal activity and his arrest and imprisonment in 2019.
Bannon spent 15 hours interviewing Epstein in 2019 for what he described as a documentary. Their conversations reportedly included details about Epstein’s relationship with Trump. The documentary never came out, and Bannon was subsequently hit with allegations that he had grown friendly with the sex offender and was trying to help him out “with his public-relations problems,” according to Business Insider.
Bannon shot the never-released video footage shortly before Epstein died in jail in 2019, in what authorities ruled a suicide. Critics said it was an inside job and cover-up designed to prevent Epstein from dishing during the coming trial about his connections to prominent figures.
The Trump administration, led by FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, promised to release full video surveillance footage monitoring Epstein’s cell on the night of his death and all the federal files on the case, including the so-called “Epstein client list.” However, controversy sparked over those promises due to a missing minute in the footage, and Bondi and Patel later claimed that there was no proof of such a list or evidence that Epstein had blackmailed famous people.
“The video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was, showing he committed suicide,” Bondi said in a recent attempt to salve concerns about the missing minute. “There was a minute that was off the counter, and what we learned from the Bureau of Prisons is every year, every night, they redo that video. … So every night the video is reset, and every night should have the same minute missing.”
Musk rose to Bondi’s defense in February when she faced criticism for releasing files containing publicly known information and concerns over why thousands of documents were missing. At the time, the attorney general said Patel’s FBI failed to hand over the files in question and called on the agency to swiftly do so.
Musk suggested that Patel was the victim of Biden-era employees working against him within the FBI by suppressing the controversial question. Neither Bondi nor Patel was to blame for the chaotic rollout, he said.
“Imagine if you were suddenly appointed AG or head of the FBI,” Musk argued. “You were just thrown on a ship with a hostile crew. Until you appoint some new crew members and figure out the ropes, you can’t steer the ship effectively. It’s literally impossible.”
But Musk changed his tune on the matter after breaking with Trump over the president’s sweeping tax cuts bill that recently passed both chambers of Congress.
“How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?” he said Tuesday.
MUSK RISES TO BONDI AND PATEL’S DEFENSE AFTER DOJ’S CHAOTIC EPSTEIN FILES ROLLOUT
The same day, Trump denounced reporters for pressing him on the debacle.
“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years,” Trump told reporters at the White House before a Cabinet meeting. “We have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. Are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.”