Elon Musk Attacks Trump For Calling Jeffrey Epstein Case 'A Hoax,' Then Defends Him Against Birthday Letter Leak
Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk launched another attack on President Donald Trump over the Jeffrey Epstein client list row amid rising discontentment over the case.
What Happened: The billionaire took to social media platform X to share his thoughts on the case after Trump deemed the Epstein case a "hoax."
"Wow I can't believe Epstein killed himself before realizing it was all a hoax," Musk said in his post on Thursday.
However, the billionaire was also seen coming to the defense of the President after WSJ reported on Thursday, claiming to have reviewed a 2003 lewd birthday letter to Epstein by Trump for Epstein's 50th birthday as part of an album collected by Epstein's wife, Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump has since threatened to sue WSJ over the claims.
Musk prompted Grok, asking the xAI model to verify whether the letter was false or true in a reply to a post on X. The billionaire then reposted Grok's explanation on the claim, which Grok identified as false.
"Grok, is the letter most likely fake or true?" Musk asked in his post.
Why It Matters: The news comes as Musk had reignited the Epstein row, calling on the Trump administration to release the files as tensions rose between the pair following disagreements over the Big Beautiful Bill law.
In what could be perceived as an anti-Musk move, Trump recently appointed Jonathan Morrison, a Tesla critic, as his nominee to lead the NHTSA. Morrison had called for tougher oversight of autonomous vehicles in the U.S., which could create hurdles for Tesla's robotaxi ambitions.
The company's FSD tech has already been under scrutiny by the NHTSA for possible traffic violations committed by the Robotaxis during Austin's launch event in June.
Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, which gets rid of the $7,500 EV credit, also effectively makes the ZEV credits, which earned Tesla billions in revenue last year, redundant by relaxing CAFE or Corporate Average Fuel Economy norms.
The norms dictate that each car should drive a certain number of miles on a gallon of fuel. Violating the norms by failing to meet the figures would result in hefty fines for automakers.
With relaxed norms, automakers wouldn't have to worry about violating the norms due to decreased fuel economy requirements, buying a lesser amount of ZEV credits from companies like Tesla to comply.
Elsewhere, Tesla has also been under fire for Musk's political activities with the America Party, with experts like Gerber Kawasaki's co-founder Ross Gerber claiming that the company has been "hijacked" by Musk.
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Posted-In: Politics
