Elon Musk subpoenaed in Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit filed by U.S. Virgin Islands

Yahoo Finance Live discusses Elon Musk being the latest to receive a subpoena in the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Virigin Islands lawsuit alleging that JPMorgan aided the late Jefferey Epstein's sex trafficking operation.

Video transcript

- Elon Musk is the latest to be subpoenaed in the US Virgin Islands lawsuit alleging that JPMorgan aided the late Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking operation. The US Virgin Islands calling on the Tesla CEO to report any communication between himself, JPMorgan, and Epstein.

Yahoo Finance's Alexis Keenan joins us now with more details. And this has been going on for a while. We've gotten all these subpoenas. What are the details on this latest?

ALEXIS KEENAN: Yeah, Julie, so this information, it comes in a new court filing from the US Virgin Islands. And the government there is asking for Musk to turn over any documents he has related to the government's federal civil case that's filed in New York against JPMorgan, alleging that the bank aided the late Epstein's sex trafficking operation that involved minors by providing Epstein with banking services that allowed him and that he used to pay for recruiters in that operation, as well as victims in it.

Now, importantly here, the US Virgin Islands gives no clear reason for targeting Musk here. They say only that upon information and belief, Musk is a high-net-worth individuals who Epstein may have-- and, I repeat, "may have," referred or attempted to refer to JPMorgan.

Now, specifically the Virgin Islands government is asking Musk for, as you said, documents relating to communications. They want documents that they say would show communications between Musk and JPMorgan regarding Epstein or documents between Musk and Epstein regarding JPMorgan, also communications about any of Epstein's involvement in this trafficking operation.

Now, Musk responded on Twitter yesterday, last night, saying that this is idiotic on so many levels, that "cretin," referring to Epstein there, "never advised me on anything whatsoever. The notion that I would need to listen to financial advice from a dumb crook is absurd. JPMorgan let Tesla down 10 years ago despite having Tesla global commercial banking, which we withdrew. I have never forgiven them," meaning JPMorgan Chase.

That relationship is something that Musk has talked at length about including in testimony in a Tesla shareholder case that concluded earlier this year. But, Julie, back in 2019, there was some speculation that Musk has since denied, as well as Tesla has denied, saying that Epstein had given Musk some sort of advisement after he had come under regulatory scrutiny for that funding secured tweet.

So so far, though, JPMorgan has denied any knowledge of Epstein's alleged crimes. And so we will have to see where this goes. But certainly this subpoena looking a bit like a fishing expedition, at least right now.

- So who else has the US Virgin Islands targeted with a subpoena?

ALEXIS KEENAN: Yeah, so there was a one about a week ago that the Virgin Islands was also trying to subpoena communication, documents reflecting communications, that is, from Google cofounder Larry Page. So both of these instances, though, the government there seeming to have trouble reaching these executives. They're trying and asking for the court to allow it to use alternate means to subpoena this information. So the next step we would expect here would be a court's decision on both of those requests.