Newly released files from DoJ show the pair making plans in 2013 for the Tesla CEO to visit Epstein’s private island

Elon Musk had more extensive – and more friendly – communications with the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein than previously publicly known, according to documents released on Friday by the Department of Justice. Emails in the files appear to show the two cordially messaging each other to make plans for Musk to visit Epstein’s island.

The documents include Musk and Epstein emailing in December 2013 to determine when Musk should make the trip to Little St James.

Musk has been harshly critical of those linked to Epstein, but the newly released emails appear to contradict his own longstanding denial of any ties of his own. The Tesla CEO told Vanity Fair in 2019 that Epstein was “obviously a creep” and claimed that Epstein “tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined.” The emails between the two moguls come years after Epstein was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida. Authorities later arrested Epstein in 2019 on federal sex-trafficking charges.