The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Elon Threw The Epstein Bomb at Trump

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

Joanna Coles calls an emergency podcast for the biggest fall-out in political history: Donald Trump and Elon Musk. And it's the perfect guest to explain EVERYTHING: Michael Wolff, the Trump biographer—who already predicted what would happen. He unpacks a "nuclear" break-up and why Musk has used the weapon Trump fears most: Jeffrey Epstein. Wolff reveals his own extraordinary moment of interviewing Trump and what happened when he raised the pedophile financier. He talks about the predator and the president's long friendship. And he explains why Musk is now Trump's perfect enemy—bigger than Harvard and of course the Democrats. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, this is an extraordinary day in politics. We've got the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, attacking the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump, and now just firing salvos at each other. Elon Musk has now introduced the theme of Jeffrey Epstein. He said, mark your calendars, basically saying there will be blood. Who better to talk to about this than the man who foresaw this meltdown coming. It's Michael Wolf. He's back for an emergency daily. Beast podcast. Michael, when we last spoke less than 24 hours ago, we were waiting for Donald Trump to respond to Elon Musk's criticism of the Big Beautiful Bill. Now we seem to be into a full-on WWE fight. Explain what's going on. You know, well, as we discussed yesterday, everybody comes a cropper with Donald Trump. Donald Trump is going to screw you and you're going to be screwed. So there has never been someone in a position to try to screw Donald Trump back. And so we have a new paradigm, the richest man in the world and the most powerful man in the world locked in a blood feud. And who's going to win? It could go either way. It has escalated into

into nuclear territory within the last, what, 30 minutes. Right. And as we're talking, Elon Musk has just fired back at Donald Trump, who accused him of missing the glamour of the White House. I mean, you made a very good point in the podcast we dropped today, actually, earlier, saying no one leaves the White House voluntarily. Donald Trump then today, possibly having heard you, makes the point that Elon already misses the glamour of the White House.

This is what happens when people leave the White House. There was carefully on the part of the White House, no suggestion that Elon had been forced out, that Elon had been fired. I mean, this is the way men of affairs do this. There is no, you are fired. There is no reality show, denouement. But now Trump is saying, yes, I fired him. We pushed him out. Forget him. But Elon today dropped an absolute bomb.

It may not be a total nuclear bomb. That's in Trump's camp. But he dropped the bomb of Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. What does he mean? I mean, it is the nuclear. I mean, I think it has been, you know, and it is that, I mean, this is an issue that I'm particularly interested in because I've been involved in it. And actually, I've been the one who has dropped the bomb or tried to drop the bomb because it's

absolutely true. I mean, Donald Trump, here is the story hiding in plain sight for a very long time now. Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump were the best of friends for a very long time, for 15 years. They shared girlfriends. They shared airplanes. They shared business strategy. They shared tax advice or it's actually actually, they shared how to not pay taxes. they were inseparable.

And as I've said on the Daily Beast podcast and in other venues, I have seen the pictures of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein's girls together. Last November, just before the election, we ran tapes that you had provided us of Jeffrey Epstein talking extremely intimately about Donald Trump. What are the specifics in the files that they won't release? I mean, the files, and I don't know if Elon knows, you know, the idea of files may be, I mean, it may be something specific, including those pictures, which were in all probability in the safe when the FBI came and raided Jeffrey Epstein's house after he was arrested. So perhaps that's one of the things that Elon is very specifically referring to. But I think in general it could also be the Epstein file writ large. In the scope of the Jeffrey Epstein life intersects with the Donald Trump life in a very meaningful,

in fact, profound way. These guys kind of made each other. And he, Donald Trump is obviously very sensitive. sensitive about this relationship now? Completely. Actually, when interviewed Trump at one point, and, you know, they sort of, the people around him ask you, you know, just give us an idea of the topics. And I gave a whole bunch of topics, including Epstein. And all of the other topics, they've said, fine. But if you ask about Epstein, he will end the interview and you won't get anything.

Have you ever spoken to him about Epstein? I said once to him, oh, we know. know someone in common. It's the one person you don't want to have in common. And he froze. Right. So, I mean, you predicted that this would happen. And two or three months ago when we spoke, and I said if it comes down to it between Elon and Donald Trump, who will win. And you said Donald Trump, what's fascinating here is they've both got their own social platforms that they can go after each other on. And as you said, we've got the richest man in the world, now going after the most powerful man in the world. And one of the things that we have talked about, and I find so puzzling, is that nobody seems to stand up to Trump. And finally, we have Elon, which may turn out

to be his gift to the world, standing up to Donald Trump. Nobody goes after Donald Trump because he'll kill you because he is, he has the ability to do, well, just think about Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis tried to stand up to Donald Trump in a very procedural, electoral way. I'm going to run against you. Boom. He destroyed Ron DeSantis. Well, Ron DeSantis arguably also destroyed himself. I mean, he went after Disney. He's not a charismatic politician, though he's an able politician. He's certainly not a charismatic politician, but he's a perfectly ordinary politician who in this in the scheme of things was a plausible contender. Certainly he is his numbers in Florida and virtually everyone up until a certain point regarded

Ron DeSantis as certainly as a potential Trump killer until Trump killed him. I mean, he just literally went out and pulverized him. Right. All of this. I mean, what we understand now as Ron DeSantis' lack of charisma, more than lack of charisma, the worst politician in the history of bad politicians, is all Donald Trump's doing. So, and he will now, I mean, two things will either happen. He will go after Elon in that same way.

And we will see if Elon then can, you know, has the, has the chops, the fortitude and the gift to go after Donald Trump. And then it's a game. Or this is both guys going to the nuclear brink and then they will back off and there will be some negotiation and settlement. Michael, hold that thought. We're just going to sponsors for a quick break. And we're back after that quick break. We love our sponsors, but we're wanting to get back into Donald Trump versus Elon Musk. It was pretty interesting that Elon said you would never have got elected without my money.

the Democrats would have won the House. This should be a third party. Maybe I'm going to finance a third party. Totally. Just extraordinary. I mean, we are possibly walking through a new portal into something that we have not, that we have never seen before. And it is then, and, you know, I think we have to say this on, you know, we've always

talked about the power of money in politics. But this might really be the power of money. politics. And the fact they've both got their own social platforms. You said literally on the podcast that we dropped today, yes, he's the president. He's also running truth social. And this is the perfect vehicle for him. Perfect. And again, remember part of Trump now stepping forward to go after Elon is that Trump is saying, fantastic, bring it on. Right. This is what I live for. This is what has has made me, give me an enemy. Okay, what's a bigger enemy than Harvard? I was just going to say, Alan Garber, president of Harvard, must be exhaling that the attention spotlight from Donald Trump

has moved swiftly onto Elon Musk. Also hard to know with Elon's unpredictable behavior, what he does now, and who's advising him, and whether or not his Tesla board or his big Tesla shareholders are going to say to him, Elon, you need to back off. This is not a race you can win. Well, and would he listen to him? I mean, Elon and Trump are in that sense evenly matched. Who advises them? Well, nobody really. They advise themselves. You know, it occurred to me when Elon started to go after the big, beautiful bill and call it an abomination or whatever. I thought, oh, my God, you know, Elon is Zelensky. And this is exactly what got Zelensky into trouble in the Oval Office.

And I think that that's true. I think somebody coming after Trump in that way cannot be ignored. He's going to go after that person. He's going to try to kill that person. And that's obviously what's happened. But again, the issue is, has he ever gone after someone with the resources of Elon Musk? And also, is there a diabolical possibility that Elon is doing this to win back all those Tesla customers that walked away, that walked away from Tesla? We know that Tesla sales have dropped by 50% in Europe. If you were a conspiracy theorist, you might think, oh, Elon is doing this on purpose.

If you were a smart Democrat, you would immediately start courting him. You want the money. You want his support. and he can somehow absolve himself of all the work he did at Doge. Well, I think it's also that Elon is like Trump. He understands the value of an enemy. And Trump is a pretty good enemy. Well, we've got two extraordinary dinosaurs fighting each other now. It's like a triceratops and a Tyrannosaurus rex. And you're like, well, they've both got different powers.

Now, one of the things, I've just got to get email after email after email about people asking me if in the Doge data collection, they have gotten a hold of Epstein material maintained by the government or the FBI. Has Doge delved into the FBI? I thought it was more concerned with sort of USA and the education department. I think the point is Doge is everywhere. Doge is all powerful. So if you're Elon, you could have left all sorts of little tech,

bombs waiting to go off. I'm straining at the edges of my imagination here to try and think what could have been in that safe that would be so damning to Donald Trump, because there is still a sense that he could stand as he once predicted on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and nobody would care. Well, I mean, I think that that is the point. I mean, I remember Steve Bannon said to me, if there were ever photographs, and this was specifically related to the Russian investigation. Trump would merely say, that's not me. That's somebody else. Fake news. And I think that that is probably true. I mean, why, I mean, this hasn't been pinned on him yet. Why should it now be pinned on him? But who knows? Elon could have a whole team at GROC,

AI, now just working on imagery, convincing imagery of Trump and how would we know? Yeah, no. And listen, I have seen these pictures. I know that these pictures, exist. And I can describe them. There are about a dozen of them. The ones I specifically remember is two of them with topless girls of an uncertain age sitting on Trump's lap. And then Trump's standing there with a stain on the front of his pants and three or four girls kind of bent over and laughter, they're topless too, pointing at Trump's pants. God. It's the ultimate in toxic masculinity, this row, isn't it? Well, it would be interesting if toxic masculinity on this side kills or cancels out

toxic masculinity on this other side. Yeah. I think we need RFK Jr. to the rescue with the vaccine, with an anti-vaccine. Michael, excellent to check in with you. We'll be coming back to you the minute this escalates. And indeed, as you say, they've both deployed the nuclear option. Who knows what's happening next? Well, what an extraordinary day. The richest man in the world going after the most powerful man in the world.

And Michael Wolfe has brought extraordinary insight to this story. I should point out the White House repeatedly say about Michael that he's a blithering idiot, a sack of shit. and he fabricates things. Who could have made this story up? It's extraordinary. We'll be back with updates. Stay tuned. Subscribe to the Daily Beast

to make sure you do not miss anything at DailyBeast.com. Subscribe to this podcast. We'll be back with Michael Wolfe and his updates. Thank you for joining us. This podcast was produced by Devin Rodgerino, Anna Van Herson. It was edited by Jesse Millwood. And remember, Be Beast. Want more great listens?

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