Final week, the Division of Justice launched a trove of paperwork associated to its case in opposition to Jeffrey Epstein, its largest so far. Amid the thousands and thousands of recordsdata have been many mentions of Elon Musk. A search of Musk’s title within the division’s database ends in no less than 1,500 hits.
For the reason that launch, Musk has been — what else? — posting by it, defending himself and his correspondence with Epstein on his social media platform, X. Musk mentioned he had “little or no correspondence” with Epstein and “declined repeated invites” to go to Epstein’s island, regardless of emails displaying he had been in contact with Epstein in 2012 and 2013, at one level asking him, “What day/night time would be the wildest get together in your island?” Epstein even supplied to ship a helicopter to carry Musk to the island.
It’s unclear if Musk ever made it to the island, and he hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing associated to Epstein. However the revelations actually fly within the face of Musk’s previous denials that he “REFUSED” invites from the convicted intercourse offender, as does his bumbling efforts at harm management now that the reality has emerged.
The revelations actually fly within the face of Musk’s previous denials that he “REFUSED” invites from the convicted intercourse offender.
To make sure, Musk is that uncommon govt who appears financially immune from his many controversies. He has endured defamation lawsuits, wrongful demise lawsuits, sexual misconduct allegations, rumors of drug use, and extra — and all of the whereas his internet value continues to go up.
However there’s no arguing that the information of the Epstein emails comes at a really inconvenient time for Musk, who’s at present in the course of a number of extremely delicate, high-stakes enterprise strikes, together with a attainable IPO and the tried merger of no less than two of his corporations. SpaceX is lining up for a attainable file public providing later this yr. And final week, Reuters reported that Musk was fascinated with merging his rocket and telecommunications firm with xAI. (As this story revealed, the merger was formally introduced.)
The information that Musk sought an invitation to Epstein’s island might “dent his picture” with buyers, mentioned Ann Lipton, a professor of company governance on the College of Colorado Legislation Faculty. And since a lot of Musk’s success will depend on the optimism he generates amongst buyers, a “dent” in that optimism might harm his efforts to safe a historic IPO for SpaceX.
“However I feel the larger threat to his corporations is what we’d name ‘distraction prices’ — he appears to be spending a variety of time attempting to refute allegations that he was concerned with Epstein, and that itself is perhaps one thing buyers develop into involved about,” Lipton mentioned in an e mail.
Musk has confronted criticisms about how he chooses to spend his time earlier than. In 2022, a whole lot of SpaceX workers signed a letter asserting that Musk’s habits had develop into a supply of embarrassment and a distraction for the corporate. (On the time, the billionaire was in the course of his doomed effort to weasel out of his supply to purchase Twitter.) Final yr, Tesla’s shareholders accepted a $1 trillion pay bundle for Musk that was engineered to lure him away from DOGE and his work for the Trump administration, and again to the EV firm.
The information that Musk sought an invitation to Epstein’s island might “dent his picture” with buyers
SpaceX’s IPO represents the most important threat for Musk proper now, mentioned Gregory Shill, legislation professor and company governance skilled at Arizona State College. The disclosure course of for public choices is intensive and topic to scrutiny by the Securities and Alternate Fee, along with personal litigants. Any misrepresentation or omission carries a variety of authorized threat for SpaceX — and by extension, Musk. However he can mitigate these dangers by “inserting an acceptable threat issue within the S-1,” together with “key individual threat” associated to Musk himself, Shill mentioned.
If extra Epstein revelations emerge, Musk might discover himself going through extra critical penalties. In fact, whether or not somebody with confirmed ties to Epstein experiences any penalties for his or her actions typically will depend on which political get together occurs to be in energy. For instance, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers resigned from a number of distinguished roles, most notably the board of OpenAI, following the discharge of his emails with Epstein. Prince Andrew was stripped of his royal titles. Invoice and Hillary Clinton are at present going through a contempt vote in Congress after they rebuffed a subpoena to testify in a bipartisan probe into Epstein.
In fact, the Clintons’ get together is out of energy in Washington, whereas Musk’s is in. There aren’t any Republican requires Musk, who’s a serious political donor, to additional clarify his contacts with Epstein. The one calls are coming from inside the home, or reasonably Musk’s personal X, the place he spent the weekend attempting to drown out the noise about his personal makes an attempt to go to Epstein’s island by pointing the finger at different distinguished names (Steve Bannon, Reid Hoffman, and so on.) included within the paperwork.
It’s exceedingly uncommon that Musk’s controversial habits finally ends up hurting him financially. He stays the world’s richest man, even whereas Tesla’s gross sales and earnings proceed to plummet. Buyers proceed to purchase and promote inventory in his corporations, regardless of his well-documented historical past of racist feedback and conspiracy mongering. He threw a Nazi salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration — Tesla’s inventory value is up nearly 11 % within the 12 months since that extremely publicized gesture.
Perhaps this controversy, like a lot of the controversies earlier than it, is solely baked into the value at this level.
“My guess,” Lipton mentioned, “is that with out additional revelations, buyers will deal with it as a part of the background noise that comes with any Musk funding.”
