US president Donald Trump is named in files about the notorious billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Elon Musk has said amid an escalating war between the two former allies.
Musk posted the allegation on his social media platform Twitter/X just minutes after Trump had suggested on his social media platform Truth Social that he would cancel all of Musk’s US government contracts.
Trump had written: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”
In a separate post sent at the same time, Trump also said: “Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!”
After Trump started speaking about Musk, shares in Tesla fell 9%.
The SpaceX chief executive then added: “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.
“Have a nice day, DJT!”
He then added: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”
Musk then shared a post calling for Trump to be impeached and vice president JD Vance to take over. He also claimed his SpaceX firm would "begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft [which supply the International Space Station] immediately".
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein
Trump is known to have had a relationship with Epstein, a billionaire paedophile who died in jail while facing charges for the sex trafficking of minors.
In 2002, Trump told New York Magazine that Epstein was a "terrific guy". The now-president went on: “I’ve known Jeff [Epstein] for 15 years. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
In 2017, Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten changed the story, telling Politico that the president "had no relationship with Mr Epstein and had no knowledge whatsoever of his conduct".
Earlier this year, the Trump administration published what it said was "phase one" of the Epstein files, documents linked to the paedophile. However, almost all of the information was already public and Trump's own allies criticised the lack of transparency.
Asked about when future publication might happen in April, Trump said: "I don’t know, I’ll speak to the attorney general about that, I really don’t know."
In a civil case in May 2023, Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting writer E. Jean Carroll in New York in the 1990s.
Dozens of other women have also accused the US president of sexual misconduct.
Ahead of the 2016 presidential elections, video was published of Trump describing his attempt to seduce a married woman. He said: "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything."
During Trump's second run at the White House, Musk was one of his closest allies. The Tesla chief executive, the world's richest man, reportedly spent more than $290 million on the campaign.
During a rally after Trump's inauguration, Musk then sparked outrage after throwing multiple Nazi salutes.
Tesla stock has since dropped significantly, with sales plummeting across Europe. Yesterday, reports said Tesla sales had dropped by 45% in the UK in May, reflecting similar major drops in other nations, even as EV sales as a whole climbed.
Musk was head of the US government's "Department of Government Efficiency", or Doge, which cut billions from federal budgets including for aid work overseas. He recently left as a bitter war broke out between him and Trump.
Critics claim that Musk only entered government with the aim of securing contracts for his own firms.
