Elon Musk has been subpoenaed in connection with a lawsuit accusing JPMorgan of facilitating late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s human trafficking operation in the US Virgin Islands.
In a filing on Monday, the US Virgin Islands’ lawyers said the request for documents was made because Musk is “a high-net-worth individual who Epstein may have referred or attempted to refer to JPMorgan”.
They asked the judge overseeing the civil case in New York to allow Musk to be served via mail, after the US Virgin Islands made “good-faith attempts to obtain an address” for the billionaire, including hiring an investigative firm, but failed to locate him in person.
The subpoena to Musk comes a few weeks after the US Virgin Islands issued separate requests to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, as well as Hyatt Hotels chair Thomas Pritzker, real estate and media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman and Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz.
The purpose of those subpoenas was unknown, and the individuals involved did not respond to requests for comment. But the US Virgin Islands has alleged that as well as depositing his own money at JPMorgan, Epstein helped introduce wealthy clients to the bank.
Musk described the request as “idiotic” in a tweet late on Monday. “That cretin never advised me on anything whatsoever,” he wrote. “The notion that I would need or listen to financial advice from a dumb crook is absurd.”
JPMorgan declined to comment.
Musk has repeatedly denied knowing Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, with whom he was pictured at a Vanity Fair party in 2014. Responding to a tweet featuring the image last year, Musk said he had been photobombed.
“You should [ask Vanity Fair] why they invited her,” Musk wrote, adding: “The same people who push this photo say nothing about prominent people who actually went to [Epstein’s] island a dozen times. Also very strange.” Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of aiding Epstein’s abuse.
Musk is the latest high-profile figure to become embroiled in a trio of lawsuits over JPMorgan and its senior executives’ ties to Epstein. The US Virgin Islands and an unnamed Epstein accuser separately sued the bank last year, alleging that it ignored internal warnings about Epstein for several years before eventually dropping him as a client in 2013.
The bank has denied wrongdoing, and has itself sued Jes Staley — previously one of JPMorgan’s most senior executives who was for a period Epstein’s personal banker — accusing him of withholding information about Epstein’s illegal activities.
Staley left JPMorgan in 2013 and was subsequently the boss of British bank Barclays. He departed Barclays after six years following an investigation by UK regulators into the way in which he had characterised his relationship with Epstein. In court filings, Staley’s lawyers have described JPMorgan’s claims as “slanderous” and “baseless but serious”.
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