Elon Musk has accused Donald Trump of being in the Epstein files — after first financing his presidential campaign. Alex Vickery-Howe reports.
IF YOU KNEW SOMEONE was a paedophile, would you spend millions on their presidential campaign? Elon Musk did.
Logic probably shouldn't be applied to any situation involving billionaire tech bro Elon Musk and aspiring Emperor of America Donald Trump. But for those who’ve followed their feud over the past few weeks, the implications of Musk’s recent bombshell are just as damning to the source as they are to the target.
Well, almost as damning.
The fact that Musk has so confidently, and publicly, accused Trump of being named and shamed in the Epstein files – the personal documents relating to the activities of disgraced financier and child predator Jeffrey Epstein, who took his own life in 2019 – would seem to indicate that Musk has been supporting a sex offender and actively promoting his return to the White House. Even weirder — Musk brought his kid along to work.
It should be emphasised that these are Musk’s accusations, not this writer's and not this publication’s. It should also be stated that even if someone may have a close relationship with a child predator going back many years, it doesn’t automatically mean they are guilty by association. Musk, however, wants us to join these dots. His tweet was designed to suggest that Trump was much closer to Epstein than Trump himself has ever admitted.
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We do know that Epstein kept blackmail material on his associates. He was a little like Russian President Vladimir Putin in that respect. If such material exists and Elon Musk knew about it, then why is it only coming out now? Shouldn’t Musk have said something before Trump was re-elected?
And, if the material is benign or overblown, as many Trump supporters argue, why would Musk bring it up at all? What would be the point?
The core argument here is, Musk may be eccentric, easily led and prone to mood swings, but he’s no fool. He has to know that Trump is nothing if not litigious and that the combative President of the United States (POTUS) will not hesitate to crush this story...unless, of course, it all happens to be factually accurate.
With scores of followers on Twitter, Musk knew his explosion would ricochet far and wide. He knew Trump’s lawyers would catch wind of it immediately. To suggest that it was a spur-of-the-moment lie, a fabrication fired off on furious impulse, is to suggest that Elon Musk doesn’t understand how social media works.
In fact, Musk would be stark raving mad to make this claim without the truth as his defence. He has left himself legally vulnerable and handed Trump an easy moral and political victory — unless, again, it all happens to be factually accurate.
You can see where this is going. This writer's background in writing for performance dictates that the "rule of three" should be followed and a key point repeated thrice, but this lily doesn’t need gilding. It’s a simple logical argument: Elon Musk wouldn’t engage in public libel without some hefty evidence in his possession.
And the rest writes itself.
If Elon Musk has known this entire time that Trump’s association with Epstein was more than casual and less than savoury, then it follows that he put his ethical qualms aside during the U.S. Presidential Election in the pursuit of personal profit and political power. He knowingly funded a man who was – at best – paedophile adjacent.
Musk now appears to be implying more than association, more than adjacency, but let's leave it to others to interpret his tweet as they see fit. It’s certainly difficult to frame it as a joke. Those CreepyJoe memes of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden look even more pathetic than the ones directed at "crooked Hillary" as we settle into the stark reality of 2025. It’s almost like they were all lies and slogans for idiots to swallow.
If we think back to the #pizzagate scandal and the fatal stupidity of Edgar Maddison Welch, and all the other baseless, rudderless, scattergun accusations of "sex cults" and "child murder" that have beleaguered the Democrats, we can’t help but marvel at the irony of Trump being named in the Epstein files.
The Republicans have a habit of accusing others of the very crimes they routinely commit. Remember when Trump accused former U.S. President Bill Clinton of rape? Well, Donnie is the one liable for millions in damages for forcing himself on a woman in a department store dressing room. Two juries. A failed appeal. That’s all "fake news", right? Maybe it’s AI?
The mental gymnastics must be exhausting his supporter base.
Where does Musk’s revelation leave the MAGA movement now? How do "good Christians" reconcile this breaking news with their worldview? It appears that one Republican hero has deceived the American people by withholding key information that would condemn another Republican hero. If Musk is now telling the truth, then he has exposed himself as a reprehensible enabler and dissembler who put his business empire ahead of U.S. democracy by donating heavily to a predator’s campaign. If.
People have focused on "daddy and daddy fighting", but how about, daddy lied to get creepy grandpa elected?’ Shouldn’t that be the headline?
Or, for the sake of balance, let’s flip the script.
If Musk is now lying, then he has betrayed the MAGA-faithful and slandered the sitting U.S. President on a public platform. That still makes him a pretty horrible guy.
There is no version of this where Musk emerges with a clean reputation.
There is one version where Donald Trump is the innocent victim of smear and innuendo. You know, like that time he boasted about sexual assault on the Access Hollywood tape, or when he cheated on his pregnant wife with Stormy Daniels, or when he lost his day in court against E Jean Carroll. Or when he refused to pay his contractors. Or when he ran his scam charity. Or when he ran his scam university.
There is one version where Donald Trump is exactly what Musk is suggesting. On the balance of probabilities – and Epstein’s own words – that is the most likely version. God and Yoda help us.
Musk is busily retracting his claims and deleting that tweet. Maybe Trump’s lawyers have indeed caught up with him, or maybe he has realised that the fireball he launched is going to burn him too.
Or maybe the whole Musk/Trump blowup was a distraction from the brutal assaults against American citizens in the name of "immigration reform", the military invasion of Los Angeles, and the fascist parade that was intended to solidify Trump’s status as dictator-in-chief.
Or maybe this lunacy is all happening at once and we're looking for logic in the wrong places.
Dr Alex Vickery-Howe is an award-winning playwright and social commentator. He teaches creative writing, screen and drama at Flinders University.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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