Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been served a subpoena in a case brought against JPMorgan Chase by the US Virgin Islands, a US territory where Epstein owned a private island at which he reportedly ran a massive sex trafficking operation. The court order demands a record of all communications between him and Epstein related to Tesla, especially financial advice Epstein may have given him. It also demands "all Documents reflecting or regarding Epstein’s involvement in human trafficking and/or his procurement of girls or women for consensual sex."
Musk is not being asked to testify under oath.
Musk, who was difficult for the US Virgin Islands to reach and serve the subpoena directly, has so far refused to respond to media inquiries about the case. However, He did make a public comment about it on Twitter, a website he owns, on Monday night.
"This is idiotic on so many levels," Musk wrote on Twitter in reply to a tweet of a news article about the subpoena that was shared by "unusual_whales", an account that gives trading advice.
Musk continued: "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 business, which we then withdrew. I have never forgiven them."
The subpoena is based on a 2018 interview with the New York Times in which Epstein was asked about rumors he had advised Tesla when it came under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for comments Musk had made about intending to take the company private. The interview was printed in August 2019, after Epstein's alleged suicide in a New York jail.
In the interview, Epstein is evasive, but claims someone at Tesla who was close to Musk had reached out to him for advice. Still, the author, NYT columnist James B. Stewart, writes: "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."
In the end, the SEC forced Musk to abdicate the role of chairman of Tesla for three years and pay a $20 million fine, although he remained CEO.
The larger lawsuit brought by the US Virgin Islands concerning Epstein alleges that JPMorgan Chase enabled and benefited from Epstein’s trafficking of young women to Little Saint James, an island in the archipelago owned by the financier. Numerous women have come forward claiming they were sex slaves on the island, made to provide sex to Epstein and a myriad of rich and powerful clients from around the globe.
While Musk has not been asked for a deposition, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is set to be deposed concerning the case in a Manhattan court later this month.
Notably, Musk has not been summoned before any court about an infamous 2014 photo of him and Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who was found guilty in 2021 of recruiting underage girls for Epstein’s sex ring. Musk has claimed he doesn't "know her at all" and that she "photobombed" him in the photo, which was taken at an event hosted by pop culture magazine Vanity Fair.