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Jeffrey Epstein told a reporter he saw Silicon Valley notables doing drugs and ‘arranging for sex’ – Business Insider


Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by suicide in jail on Saturday, told a reporter last year he had dirt on some of Silicon Valley’s elite.

The stereotypical tech entrepreneur is a nerdy guy who works all the time. But according Epstein, the truth was much different, The New York Times’ James B. Stewart said in a report on Monday. Epstein said he had seen prominent tech figures doing drugs and “arranging for sex,” according to the article.

“They were hedonistic and regular users of recreational drugs,” Stewart reported, paraphrasing Epstein.

Stewart doesn’t name any particular people whom Epstein said he witnessed doing illicit or hedonistic things.

The article focuses on Epstein’s claim that he was asked by Tesla CEO Elon Musk to help him find a new chairman for the electric-car company. Epstein told Stewart that Musk had authorized him to help find a new chairman after Musk got in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission last year over an ill-advised tweet about having “funding secured” for the company to go private.

In a statement to Business Insider, a spokesperson for Musk said it was “incorrect to say that Epstein ever advised Elon on anything.”

Read more: Jeffrey Epstein allegedly boasted about advising Elon Musk in the wake of his bungled attempt to take Tesla private

Stewart later thought about “how little information Mr. Epstein had actually provided” in the interview. “While I can’t say anything he said was an explicit lie, much of what he said was vague or speculative and couldn’t be proved or disproved,” Stewart said in his report.

Epstein had asked Stewart to keep the interview on background, meaning that Stewart couldn’t attribute any facts to or quote Epstein in a subsequent article about what they discussed. With Epstein’s death, Stewart considered that agreement to have ended.

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at twolverton@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.





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