Elon Musk arrives for the 2022 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 2, 2022, in New York. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)
UPDATE — May 17, 2023 at 1:39 p.m. ET: One day after the publication of this story, a federal judge authorized the Virgin Islands government’s request to serve Elon Musk through a registered agent at Tesla in connection with their Epstein investigation.
The Virgin Islands government sought a federal judge’s help serving Elon Musk with a subpoena on Jeffrey Epstein’s suspected attempts to make him a JPMorgan Chase client.
“Upon information and belief, Elon Musk—the CEO of Tesla, Inc., among other companies—is a high-net-worth individual who Epstein may have referred or attempted to refer to JPMorgan,” the government’s attorney Linda Singer wrote in a four-page filing.
Musk is just one of the billionaires and CEOs drawn into litigation over Epstein’s financial relationship with JPMorgan, the deceased pedophile’s bank of choice between 1998 and 2013. In 2008, Epstein became a convicted sex offender after pleading guilty in Florida to soliciting prostitution from a minor. JPMorgan continued to count Epstein as a client five years after that conviction.
The Virgin Islands claims that JPMorgan knew at the highest levels that Epstein had been running a sex trafficking scheme and knowingly profited from it. The government’s subpoenas — which have hit CEO Jamie Dimon, Alphabet co-founder Larry Page, ex-L Brands CEO Les Wexner, and others — seek to ascertain what high-profile clients Epstein brought or promised to the megabank.
Musk’s subpoena was issued on April 28, 2023, and he hasn’t made service easy on the Virgin Islands attorney general.
“The Government made good-faith attempts to obtain an address for Mr. Musk, including hiring an investigative firm to search public records databases for possible addresses,” the Virgin Islands filing states. “One address found was that of Mr. Musk’s counsel who has waived service on Mr. Musk’s behalf in several recent federal cases filed within the last year. The Government contacted Mr. Musk’s counsel via email to ask if he would be authorized to accept service on Mr. Musk’s behalf in this matter but did not receive a response confirming or denying his authority.”
“In addition, the Government’s process server attempted service at the business address for Tesla, Inc. identified by the investigative firm, but was unable to confirm whether or not Mr. Musk was at the location and available for service and was directed by security to contact the company’s registered agent and/or legal department,” the filing continues.
With the discovery deadline looming at the end of the month, the Virgin Islands wants Senior U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff to allow them to serve Musk via Tesla, as his registered agent. Rakoff gave any party wishing to file an objection a deadline of 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Musk, who as Twitter’s owner refers to himself as the “chief twit,” called the subpoena “idiotic” on his platform.
“That cretin never advised me on anything whatsoever,” Musk said. “The notion that I would need or listen to financial advice from a dumb crook is absurd.”
This is idiotic on so many levels:
1. That cretin never advised me on anything whatsoever.
2. The notion that I would need or listen to financial advice from a dumb crook is absurd.
3. JPM let Tesla down ten years ago, despite having Tesla’s global commercial banking…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2023
Musk added more about his acrimonious fallout with JPMorgan.
“JPM let Tesla down ten years ago, despite having Tesla’s global commercial banking business, which we then withdrew,” Musk said. “I have never forgiven them.”
JPMorgan also severed ties with Epstein exactly 10 years ago. Musk vigorously denies ties to Epstein and the deceased predator’s now-convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell, but public evidence suggests at least fleeting associations with the pair. In 2014, Musk was famously photographed with Maxwell at a Vanity Fair party, where he claims that she “photobombed” him.
In 2011, Musk and Epstein both attended an annual event known as the “billionaires’ dinner,” which also counted Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Google co-founder Sergey Brin as guests.
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