Ghislaine Maxwell and Elon Musk attend the 2014 Self-importance Truthful Oscar Social gathering Hosted By Graydon Carter on March 2, 2014 in West Hollywood, California.
Kevin Mazur | vf14 | Wireimage | Getty Pictures
A federal choose dominated Wednesday that the U.S. Virgin Islands can serve a subpoena for Elon Musk to his electrical automotive firm Tesla, as a part of the federal government’s lawsuit in opposition to JPMorgan Chase over the financial institution’s ties to lifeless sexual trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The ruling got here days after attorneys for the USVI authorities advised Choose Jed Rakoff they’d been unable to serve the Tesla CEO personally with the subpoena demanding paperwork associated to Epstein and JPMorgan.
The Virgin Islands is suing JPMorgan in U.S. District Courtroom in Manhattan for allegedly enabling and financially benefiting from Epstein’s intercourse trafficking of younger girls. The late financier and intercourse legal had been a buyer of the financial institution from 1998 by means of 2013. JPMorgan denies any wrongdoing.
On April 28, the USVI issued a subpoena to Musk due to suspicion that Epstein “could have referred or tried to refer” Musk as a shopper to JPMorgan, in line with a courtroom submitting Monday.
That subpoena calls for that Musk flip over any paperwork exhibiting communication involving him, JPMorgan and Epstein, in addition to “all Paperwork reflecting or relating to Epstein’s involvement in human trafficking and/or his procurement of ladies or girls for consensual intercourse.”
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The USVI mentioned in a courtroom submitting Monday that an investigative agency it had retained had been unable to find Musk to serve him in particular person with the subpoena, as is the norm.
The submitting additionally mentioned {that a} lawyer for Musk didn’t reply to a request that the legal professional settle for the subpoena for his shopper.
Rakoff, in his order Wednesday, approved the USVI to “prepare different service of its Subpoena to Produce Paperwork by serving Elon Musk through service upon Tesla Inc.’s registered agent.”
Musk did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
The USVI additionally has issued comparable subpoenas for paperwork associated to Epstein and JPMorgan to Google co-founders Larry Web page and Sergey Brin, former Disney government Michael Ovitz, Hyatt Inns government chairman Thomas Pritzker and Mort Zuckerman, the billionaire actual property investor.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is scheduled to be deposed on Might 26 for the lawsuit and for a associated swimsuit in opposition to the financial institution by a girl who says Epstein sexually abused her.
Muks in a tweet Monday evening had blasted the concept of that he be given a subpoena within the case.
“That is idiotic on so many ranges,” Musk wrote on Twitter, which he purchased and took personal final yr.
“That cretin by no means suggested me on something by any means,” he wrote, referring to Epstein.
“The notion that I would want or hearken to monetary recommendation from a dumb criminal is absurd,” Musk added. “JPM let Tesla down ten years in the past, regardless of having Tesla’s international business banking enterprise, which we then withdrew. I’ve by no means forgiven them.”
In 2018, Epstein advised The New York Occasions he had been advising Musk after the Securities and Alternate Fee opened a probe into Musk’s feedback about taking Tesla personal. A Tesla spokesperson advised The Occasions, “It’s incorrect to say that Epstein ever suggested Elon on something.”
Epstein killed himself in August 2019, a month after federal authorities arrested him on an indictment charging him with baby intercourse trafficking. He had beforehand pleaded responsible in 2008 to a Florida state cost of soliciting intercourse from an underage lady.
Earlier than his fall from grace, Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, socialized with many wealthy and highly effective individuals, amongst them former presidents Donald Trump and Invoice Clinton, in addition to Britain’s Prince Andrew, the brother of King Charles III.
Maxwell, a British socialite, was convicted in late 2021 in federal courtroom in Manhattan of procuring underage ladies to be sexually abused by Epstein. Maxwell was sentenced in June 2022 to twenty years in jail.
Musk in July 2020 replied to a Twitter publish that confirmed him posing for a photograph subsequent to a smiling Maxwell.
“Do not know Ghislaine in any respect,” Musk wrote. “She photobombed me as soon as at a Self-importance Truthful celebration a number of years in the past. Actual query is why VF invited her within the first place.”
The New York Occasions, in a 2022 article detailing that picture, reported {that a} Self-importance Truthful employees member who had stood subsequent to each Maxwell and Musk on the celebration mentioned that “the pair chatted.”
“Ms. Maxwell requested Mr. Musk if there have been a method to take away oneself from the web and inspired Mr. Musk to destroy the web; Mr. Musk demurred,” The Occasions reported, citing the staffer, who shared contemporaneous notes of the encounter.
“Ms. Maxwell then requested Mr. Musk why aliens hadn’t but made contact with humanity, to which Mr. Musk replied that every one civilizations ultimately finish — together with Maxwell’s hypothetical alien one — and raised the chance that people live in a simulation.”