For eons, grandmothers whispered in the ears of little girls one essential bit of advice: it’s as easy to love a rich man as it is a poor man.
They had good reasons for offering such guidance. Even more than today, women faced discrimination in educational opportunities, hiring and advancement. It was before the women’s movement took on systemic wage bias and a financial system that discriminated against women applying for mortgages or credit cards.
So, cynical or not, for generations of women who wanted to get ahead, marrying rich was the logical strategy.
But the wisest among those grandmas cautioned that it might not turn out to be a Cinderella story. Their sage advice often emerged from keen observation or hard experience. If you marry for money, you’ll earn every nickel, they said.
And that was long before Melinda French Gates talked openly about the “muck” in her marriage to Bill Gates, Epstein’s pal and one of the richest men in the world. It was long before the Epstein files revealed the perversion and the debauchery of so many of the world’s richest men.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly known as Prince Andrew), Howard Lutnick, Larry Summers, Bill Clinton, Steven Tisch, Casey Wasserman, Sergey Brin, Steve Bannon, Ehud Barak, Elon Musk, Donald Trump … every day the list of men in Epstein’s, um, social circle gets longer.
Kimbal Musk, the Colorado restaurateur and brother of Elon, appears in the files more than 300 times.
Brooke Stephenson of the nonprofit Boulder Reporting Lab has immersed herself in the nausea-inducing files to see if there’s any truth to Kimbal’s assertions that he was not part of Jeffrey Epstein’s circle or a beneficiary of his international sexual services cartel.
“My only meeting with that demon was in his New York office during the day I never met with him again and I never went to his island,” Musk wrote in a Feb. 9 post on X.
But, as with so many of these lawyered-up bazillionaires, it turns out it’s not so simple.
Stephenson tracked emails among Kimbal, Epstein and Boris Nikolic, who was a science adviser for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and one of Epstein’s close colleagues. (Colleague. Is that the right word? Probably not.)
Anyway, the emails reveal Kimbal lunched with Epstein and Nikolic at Epstein’s penthouse and later exchanged friendly messages and jokes long after Epstein had pleaded guilty to sex crimes involving minors in Florida in 2008.
In one email to Kimbal in January 2013, Epstein said, “You are invited to the island for a couple of days, come relax.”
“That would be nice,” Musk replied to the convicted sexual predator. “I’m still dealing with the nuclear explosion that is my life, but I’m hopeful that things are settling down a bit…. Maybe in the spring. Please say hi to [the woman] for me.”
The “woman” mentioned was a girlfriend of Kimbal between 2012 and 2015 whose name was redacted. An email to Epstein during that time reported that Kimbal “was [the woman’s] guy.”
Kimbal insisted that Epstein didn’t introduce them, but the emails would suggest otherwise.
Stephenson found a Sept. 19, 2012, email from Nikolic to Epstein about getting together with Kimbal and Elon the next night for Kimbal’s birthday.
“I told him that you will join us as well,” Nikolic wrote. “Also I told him that you are coming with [redacted] and that he might want to ditch his ex/or current to be. He said yes and is looking so much forward. So please prepare [redacted]—;) She might like Elon as well.”
Two days later, Nikolic emailed Epstein: “Kimbal really like [the woman] :-)”.
“We will need to distract the ex (any spare ambien);-),” he added.
On Sept. 23, Nikolic emailed Epstein that “[the woman] and Kimbal had a great time.” A month later, Kimbal Musk emailed Nikolic and Epstein to thank them for “connecting me with [the woman].”
“Kimbal — just fyi — you better be nice to [the woman] ;)” Nikolic responded to Musk. “Jeffrey goes crazy when someone mistreats his girls/friends.”
Several other emails between the woman and Epstein appear to have her seeking permission to travel with Kimbal.
Then, when Kimbal emailed the woman to say he wanted to ratchet the relationship back to just “dating,” she forwarded the message to Epstein, seeking his advice.
“I’d prefer not to stay w Kimbal if we’re ‘dating’,” she wrote.
“Ok, good news now I have you back again, full time,” Epstein responded.
The Boulder Reporting Lab explicitly states that “the documents … do not accuse Musk of wrongdoing related to Epstein.”
That’s for the world to decide.
As with Kimbal Musk and most of the men whose names appear in the millions of pages in the Epstein files, the only consequences for their actions so far are embarrassment and public disgust.
Sure, a few lost their jobs. One was demoted from prince to the butt of late-night comedians’ jokes.
But most just denied everything, summoned their private jets and took refuge in their villas on their private islands, waiting for the media storm to break so they could return to their lives of feigning ignorance, financing political campaigns and exploiting vulnerable young women for sport.
Our grandmothers would be appalled.
Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.
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