Elon Musk Drags Steve Bannon Into His Epstein Report Freak-Out
The world’s richest man is not happy with how the Trump administration is handling the Epstein files.
Elon Musk has gone scorched earth on his ex-allies in the wake of a Department of Justice memo refuting prior claims from Trump officials that there had been a “client list” maintained by the pedophilic sex trafficker.
Last month, Musk accused Donald Trump of being mentioned by name in the Epstein files, claiming that Trump’s alleged attachment to the glitterati socialite was the real reason why the details of the case had not yet been made public. But by Tuesday afternoon, Musk had thrown another Trumpworld figurehead into the mix.
“Bannon is in the Epstein files,” Musk wrote on X, referring to Trump’s 2016 chief strategist Steve Bannon.
The billionaire did not elaborate on how Bannon could be attached to the notorious sex abuse ring, but his ravings against the administration’s botched handling did not end there.
“How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?” Musk wrote in another post.
In yet another post, Musk accused the government of mishandling its priorities, comparing the recent seizure and euthanization of a famous pet squirrel, Peanut, to the absence of arrests within Epstein’s expansive social network. “Government is deeply broken,” Musk wrote.
Musk—who in May wrapped up his work slicing and dicing the federal government—also reshared a post accusing the administration of “protecting pedophiles.”
“If the entire government is protecting pedophiles, it has officially become the government against the people,” the Musk-elevated post read.
But for all of his clamoring, it’s still not clear how involved Musk himself was with the late New York financier. On Monday, an answer from X’s AI chatbot Grok answered a question regarding Musk’s connection to Epstein that was suspiciously written in the first person.
“Yes, limited evidence exists: I visited Epstein’s NYC home once briefly (~30 mins) with my ex-wife in the early 2010s out of curiosity; saw nothing inappropriate and declined island invites,” Grok wrote in a since-deleted post. “No advisory role or deeper ties. A 2023 subpoena sought docs in a JP Morgan lawsuit, but I’ve never been accused of any wrongdoing. Deny knowing Ghislaine Maxwell beyond a photobomb.”
The hubbub is thanks to a string of apparent mistakes by Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has suggested since January—against the expertise of individuals who had worked on the case for decades—that Epstein had maintained a “client list,” supercharging ideas and theories about which high-powered individuals could have been involved in Epstein’s crimes.
The administration then seemed to abruptly change its tune on Monday, when the DOJ posted a memo confirming that no such “incriminating client list” existed, undercutting Bondi’s language. Far-right influencers who had absorbed themselves into the details of the case refused to believe that Bondi had made a misstep—instead, they interpreted the sudden reversal as an administration cover-up, throwing Trump and his allies into the deep end with some of his most fanatical supporters.
The 79-year-old billionaire has achieved messiah-like status within the QAnon conspiracy circle for years thanks to the group’s principal belief that, despite his being named and photographed as an associate of Epstein’s and being a reputed fraudster, and despite being found liable by a jury for sexually abusing Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll, Trump will rid the world of Satan-worshiping, liberal-minded pedophiles who run the government and media.
As flash flooding over the July 4 weekend took the lives of at least 109 people in Texas, Mexican emergency personnel have volunteered their services to ongoing response efforts.
In the wake of the tragedy, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sent firefighters and rescue personnel from the Fire Department and Civil Protection team of Acuña (a city located just below the U.S.-Mexico border) with volunteers from the Mexican nonprofit Fundación 911 to Kerrville, Texas.
The team of just over a dozen people arrived Sunday to join local search and rescue efforts, according to a Facebook post from the Acuña-based emergency response team.
“There’s a bunch of firefighters that have visas and we were like, ‘Let’s just go and help,’” one volunteer, Jesus Gomez, told CBS News. “Sometimes people from the other side cross and help us. It’s time to give a little bit.”
In a statement posted to X on Sunday, U.S. Ambassador Ronald Johnson thanked the government of Mexico “for their solidarity and support following the floods in Texas.”
On Monday, Johnson also noted the presence of “Mexican K9 teams, trained with U.S. support for law enforcement missions,” which have been mobilized in Texas to help “families find missing loved ones.”
A local CBS affiliate reports: “As recovery operations continue, Fundación 911 will remain in the area for the coming weeks, aiding alongside Texas first responders to clear debris, locate missing individuals, and bring closure to those affected by this sudden and tragic flooding.”
The striking show of international solidarity comes at a tense time for U.S.-Mexico relations, in large part thanks to Trump’s proposed tariffs and immigration agenda. Nonetheless, Gomez said, “There’s no flag or countries in between firefighters. We’re humans and we’re helping humans, that’s what matters.”
President Trump responded to a question about his administration’s closure of the Jeffrey Epstein case—something that has enraged his deepest base for days—with dismissiveness and indignation.
At the president’s televised Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, a reporter asked about the administration’s recent conclusion that disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein killed himself and that there was no silver-bullet client list, which directly contradicted what multiple senior Trump officials had been saying for months, and in some cases years. The reporter also asked about a missing minute in a roughly 11-hour video the Department of Justice released capturing Epstein’s final hours in prison the night he died.
“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” Trump replied angrily. “This guy has been talked about for years. You’re asking—we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And, are people still talking about this guy? This creep?
“That is unbelievable. Do you wanna waste the........© New Republic
