The Epstein files

Taking a break from calling Bruce Springsteen a boring loser on Thursday, Donald Trump followed that up with another Truth Social post saying “loyal friend” Pam Bondi will transition to a yet-to-be-announced job in the private sector.

CNN, The New York Times, and Fox News all reported that Bondi, a figure in the TikTok takeover, pressuring tech companies to block ICE-tracking apps, and the Epstein files release, has been fired. Her departure closely follows the ousting of former Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem last month, as deputy attorney general Todd Blanche will now serve as acting AG.

The tranche of Jeffrey Epstein emails and files released on January 30th tie the infamous pedophile, sex trafficker, and influence peddler to elite figures across the tech industry. The world of cryptocurrency is no exception. Epstein’s connections are intriguing, disturbing — and worth mapping closely.

With his interest first piqued as early as 2011, Epstein was ahead of the game on crypto. The financier understood it as a tool for clandestine payments and shady international finance, and found prominent community members more than willing to welcome him. Bitcoin wasn’t even invented until 2009, which means all of Epstein’s crypto connections formed after his 2008 guilty plea for solicitation of a minor.

Many of the emails released by the Department of Justice from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein are full of garbled symbols like:

Or:

The folks behind Jmail are at it again with a clone of Wikipedia that turns the treasure trove of data in Epstein’s emails into detailed dossiers on his associates. Entries include known visits to Epstein’s properties, possible knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and laws that they might have broken. The reports are dense, listing how many emails they exchanged with Epstein, basic biographical information, and details about how they’re connected.

Beyond that, there are entries for the properties Epstein owns, detailing how they were acquired and the alleged activities that took place there. There are also entries for his business dealings, including his relationship with JPMorgan Chase.

The close timing of Jeffrey Epstein coming into contact with 4chan founder Chris ‘moot’ Poole and the launch of the “politically incorrect” message board /pol/ that became a breeding ground for QAnon and the white supremacist alt-right movement was coincidental, says Poole. In a statement given to The Verge, Pool writes, “The decision to add the board was made weeks beforehand, and the board was added almost 24 hours prior to a first, chance encounter at a social event.”

Speculation about the timing arose after emails found in the millions of documents released by the Department of Justice showed Epstein and venture capitalist Boris Nikolic discussing a meeting between Epstein and moot in 2011, as well as failed attempts to meet later.

“where are you? Are you ok , I loved the torture video,” reads one email, allegedly sent by Jeffrey Epstein in 2009. The reply, from a redacted address, states: “I am in china I will be in the US 2nd week of may.”

Her face hovering over a screenshot of the exchange, a TikTok creator claims the timing aligns with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s schedule, before speculating that the word “torture” could refer to documented abuses of Palestinian detainees. The video has drawn close to 700,000 views.

On October 24th, 2011, Jeffrey Epstein was emailing back and forth with Boris Nikolic, a biotech venture capitalist who would later be named as a backup executor of Epstein’s will. The two appeared to be discussing a meeting Nikolic had helped arrange between Epstein and “moot,” the screen name for Christopher Poole, who created the platform 4chan in 2003. Nikolic asked Epstein if he liked moot, and Epstein wrote back that he liked him a lot, thought he was very bright, and had driven him home.

All of these emails were published for the first time alongside 3.5 million other documents in the latest (delayed) release of Epstein files by the Department of Justice. Before then, it was not publicly known that Epstein had any encounters with Poole, who, following publication of this article, reached out to The Verge to clarify his relationship with Epstein.

In between hobnobbing with royalty and world leaders and abusing children and young women, Jeffrey Epstein appears to have been googling himself regularly. Across several batches of documents related to the convicted sex offender made public, we see Epstein shoot off emails to associates, complaining that his digital footprint includes factual information about his crimes.

Epstein regularly directed his gripes at Al Seckel, a fixer type who appears over and over in Epstein files and promises to bury news articles and other content that mentions his abuse. But Seckel didn’t do it alone. Over thousands of documents, it’s clear that many people — SEO consultants, contacts in the sciences, and even unrelated acquaintances — helped to obscure Epstein’s past whenever someone searched for him online. Even after Epstein had pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution, making him a registered sex offender, his network was happy to do him favors and reputation management firms took him on as a client. Reputation management services aren’t necessarily a tool to cover up crimes — it’s a standard public relations practice — but in Epstein’s case, the agencies would have known about his abuse, given that that’s what they were being hired to try to minimize.

Fortnite developer Epic Games says the account some people believed to be linked to Jeffrey Epstein is a “ruse.” In a reply on X, the developer writes, “an existing Fortnite account owner changed their username” to “littlestjeff1,” an alias spotted in several emailed receipts from YouTube in the Epstein files.

The email suggests that “littlestjeff1” may have been connected to Epstein’s YouTube account, prompting online sleuths to search for the username on other platforms. Users later uncovered a “littlestjeff1” account on Fortnite, along with a 2019 email that mentions purchasing VBucks in Fortnite — though the sender and recipient are redacted. Online player databases showed that the “littlestjeff1” account has been active on Fortnite, fueling conspiracy theories that Epstein is still alive.

He might be dead, but it sure seems like Jeffrey Epstein won.

Sure, Epstein was arrested on charges of sex trafficking minors. Sure, he died in jail. (I am not going to wade into the debate about how.) But he subscribed to a racist, misogynist ideology that meant rich white men like him could do whatever they liked. And it seems he took measures to spread it.

Last week, the Department of Justice released a trove of documents related to its case against Jeffrey Epstein, its largest to date. Amid the millions of files were many mentions of Elon Musk. A search of Musk’s name in the department’s database results in at least 1,500 hits.

Since the release, Musk has been — what else? — posting through it, defending himself and his correspondence with Epstein on his social media platform, X. Musk said he had “very little correspondence” with Epstein and “declined repeated invitations” to go to Epstein’s island, despite emails showing he had been in touch with Epstein in 2012 and 2013, at one point asking him, “What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Epstein even offered to send a helicopter to bring Musk to the island.