Elon Musk’s RSVP to Epstein Island and the $250K Horse Trade

By Rachel Hurley February 27th, 2026 Updated September 27th, 2026

“What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?”

That’s Elon Musk. Writing to Jeffrey Epstein. In November 2012. Four years after Epstein pled guilty to procuring an underage girl for prostitution. Just - you know - casually asking a registered sex offender about the party schedule on his island. The island. The one that became internationally synonymous with child sex trafficking. That island.

And when Epstein asked how many people would need a helicopter ride over, Musk wrote back: “Probably just Talulah and me.” Talulah Riley. His ex-wife at that point - they’d divorced earlier that year and would remarry in 2013. He was planning the logistics of getting there. That’s not “I refused his invitations,” which is what Musk has been saying for years. That’s RSVPing with a plus-one.

Sixteen emails. That’s how many the DOJ found between Musk and Epstein, spanning 2012 to 2013. In December 2013, Musk told Epstein he’d be in the area over the holidays and asked about a good time to visit. Epstein said there was “always space for you.” Then in December 2014, Epstein’s own schedule had an entry that read - and I need you to really savor this - “Reminder: Elon Musk to island Dec. 6 (is this still happening?)” Musk’s answer on X: “This is false.”

Even Epstein’s own schedule was following up on the RSVP.

So when the files dropped in January and Musk immediately posted that “No one pushed harder than me to have the Epstein files released,” I just - I don’t know what to do with that level of audacity. You fought to release your own emails asking about the wildest party? That’s like demanding the security footage at your own trial. Bold strategy.

But Elon Musk and brazen denial go together like NDAs and hush money. Which brings us to the horse thing.

In 2016, a SpaceX flight attendant says Musk exposed his erect penis to her during a private jet massage and offered to buy her a horse if she’d “do more.” A horse. For sexual favors. On a corporate jet. This isn’t a scandal. This is a pitch meeting for a limited series nobody greenlit because the writers’ room would’ve said “too on the nose.”

The woman says she was encouraged by SpaceX to get a masseuse license so she could give Musk massages on flights. She got the license. Then during a session, he allegedly dropped the sheet, showed her his business, touched her thigh, and made the horse offer. When she said no, her shifts started getting cut. When she hired a lawyer, SpaceX cut a check. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. NDA. Non-disparagement clause. She can’t mention Musk, SpaceX, or Tesla ever again.

Musk personally attended the mediation session. Sat in the room. Signed the deal.

And then when Business Insider broke the story in May 2022, Musk went on Twitter and said the story was “written before they even talked to me.” Which is technically true in the sense that Business Insider reached out for comment at 9am and he emailed back asking for more time, saying there was “a lot more to this story.”. They extended the deadline. He still didn’t respond. Then he complained about not being contacted. It’s giving “I didn’t open your text and now I’m mad you didn’t call.”

The timing of his response is the chef’s kiss, though. Literally the day before the story dropped, Musk tweeted that he was switching from Democrat to Republican and predicted a “dirty tricks campaign” against him. The investigations editor at Business Insider confirmed they’d contacted Musk hours before his party-switch tweet. So he knew the story was coming, pre-positioned his defense as “this is political persecution,” and then acted surprised. Reality TV contestants have been eliminated for less sophisticated gameplay.

But here’s what I keep coming back to. This man settled a sexual misconduct claim with a quarter million dollars and an NDA - and then went on to preside over a company where at least seven women have filed sexual harassment lawsuits.

Seven.

AJ Vandermeyden went public in 2017 with her harassment and pay claims, and at a company town hall that year another woman called parts of Tesla’s Fremont factory a “predator zone.” Catcalling. Groping. Men standing on elevated platforms to leer at women walking by. The factory floor, as one lawsuit put it, “more resembles a crude, archaic construction site or frat house than a cutting-edge company.” Vandermeyden filed a lawsuit. Tesla forced it into private arbitration - behind closed doors - then fired her. Their official reason? Tesla said she’d been “falsely attacking our company in the press” and acting in a “fundamentally false and misleading manner.”

So. Report harassment, get fired for reporting harassment. File that under corporate feminism.

One woman says she had to stack boxes around her workstation to physically block coworkers from catcalling and whistling at her. When she reported it to HR, Tesla moved her to a different area. Not the harassers. Her. Tyonna Turner says in her lawsuit that she was harassed about a hundred times in nearly two years. A hundred. When she complained, a supervisor told her “that’s just how people are.” Then she got fired too. Tesla settled her lawsuit in 2024. Terms? Not disclosed, naturally.

And when shareholders proposed a resolution requiring Tesla to report on its efforts to prevent sexual harassment, the board opposed it. “The Board continues to oppose initiatives that seek to direct Tesla’s strategic business decisions,” they said. The motion failed. Elon owned 14% of Tesla at the time. His vote alone could have carried it.

This is the part where the money trail gets really fun.

Tesla got a huge boost when the Obama administration agreed in 2009 to lend Elon Musk’s company $465 million. He was basically broke at the time - living on loans from friends, his PayPal money torched on rocket launches and electric car prototypes. The DOE loan let Tesla build the Model S and survive. He paid it back early, in 2013. Fine. Good. Gold star.

But that’s just the appetizer. The LA Times tallied it all up in 2015 and found that Musk’s companies - Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX together - had benefited from $4.9 billion in government support. Federal loans, state tax breaks, environmental credits, consumer rebates, factory construction subsidies. Nevada alone gave Tesla $1.3 billion in incentives for the Gigafactory. New York spent $750 million building a SolarCity plant. A full government charcuterie board of public money flowing to the world’s future richest man.

Then in 2021, Senate Democrats proposed a Billionaires Income Tax. The usual 23.8% capital gains rate on their investment gains as they piled up, sold or not. Musk’s potential hit? Up to $50 billion over five years, by one economist’s estimate. ProPublica had just reported that Musk paid literally zero federal income tax in 2018. Zero. The guy whose company borrowed $465 million from the Department of Energy paid nothing to the IRS that year.

The House passed an 8% surtax on massive incomes. The Senate went after the “buy-borrow-die” loophole - the neat trick where billionaires borrow against their assets, live lavishly, and never pay capital gains because they never technically “sell” anything. Musk loves this loophole. It’s practically a personality trait.

By early 2022, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, Musk “had come to see the Democratic Party as a direct threat to his continued favorable tax treatment.” So he started writing checks. Fifty million to Citizens for Sanity, a Republican group tied to Stephen Miller. Millions more to Building America’s Future. Ten million to Ron DeSantis. Then about $238.5 million to his America PAC for Trump. In 2020 he’d voted for Biden and privately called Trump “a stone-cold loser.” By 2024 he was Trump’s top benefactor.

That’s not a political awakening. That’s a cost-benefit analysis.

Take the subsidies, flip the party when they ask for taxes, settle the lawsuits you don’t want public, NDA the women, and then post on X about how you’re being persecuted by the establishment. Musk has turned victimhood into a brand strategy so effective it makes Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop look understated.

The funniest part? He keeps saying “No one pushed harder than me to have the Epstein files released.” And then his own emails come out and he’s asking about the wildest party on a convicted sex offender’s island. His own ex-wife’s name is in the helicopter logistics. Epstein’s own schedule says “Elon Musk to island.”

That’s not a smear campaign. That’s a self-own with a paper trail.

And the $250,000 SpaceX paid to silence a woman he allegedly flashed on a jet? That’s not even a rounding error on his net worth. That’s what he makes while brushing his teeth. The question isn’t whether he can afford to make problems disappear. It’s how many times he’s done it that we don’t know about, because the NDAs are still holding.

Quarter million for silence. Zero in taxes in 2018. Sixteen emails with Epstein. Seven harassment lawsuits at Tesla. $4.9 billion in government money.

And he wants you to believe he’s the victim.

Sources

Update, September 27th, 2026: Dollar amounts that dropped out of this post when it was published are back in. A few lines also now say who says so and when - Tyonna Turner’s lawsuit, Musk’s stake in Tesla in 2022, the year he paid no federal income tax, one economist’s $50 billion estimate, what’s known about his gifts to Building America’s Future and his America PAC, that the $465 million loan went to Tesla, and Musk’s denial of the schedule entry.

Correction, September 27th, 2026: This essay first said Musk paid the $250,000 - SpaceX paid it. It said Talulah Riley was his wife when he emailed Epstein in November 2012 - they’d divorced that year and remarried in 2013. It said Epstein’s assistant wrote the “Elon Musk to island” note - it’s an entry in Epstein’s own schedule. It said Democrats proposed a 25% minimum tax on people worth over $100 million in 2021 - the 2021 plan taxed billionaires’ gains at the 23.8% capital gains rate, and the minimum tax Biden proposed in 2022 was 20%. It said Musk didn’t answer Business Insider’s first request for comment - he emailed back asking for more time. It said AJ Vandermeyden called Tesla’s factory a “predator zone” - another woman said that at a company town hall. It misquoted Musk’s post about the Epstein files and Tesla’s statement about firing Vandermeyden. It said the sixteen emails were all to Epstein - some were from him. And it said Tyonna Turner’s settlement was sealed - its terms weren’t made public.