Jimmy Kimmel joined in on the late-night host riff session tackling Elon Musk and President Trump’s escalating feud, which has seen the tech billionaire leave the administration and allege that the commander-in-chief is named in U.S. government documents about Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, died in 2019 in what authorities said was a suicide; he was being held in a Manhattan jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
“Elon Musk went absolutely nuclear. He tweeted — let’s put that up on the big screen — ‘Time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they’ve not been made public,’” Kimmel recounted with a grin. “I knew this day would come, and yet somehow it’s even better than I imagined.”
“That’s a serious accusation. What does Elon know? What evidence could there possibly be that Trump was in league with Jeffrey Epstein? Other than this and this,” Kimmel continued, as archival images and footage of Trump and Epstein together were shown on the broadcast. “If it’s not true, he could get sued for a zillion dollars.”
Kimmel then turned the monologue onto Newsmax anchor Carl Higbie, roasting an on-air claim that “Trump might be working with Elon in tandem here to tank his own bill in a 4D chess move.”
“These dumb guys are so dumb they assume other dumb guys like Trump are geniuses,” Kimmel said. “In February, Elon tweeted, ‘I love Donald Trump as much as a straight man can love another man.’ They couldn’t quit each other. It was like ‘Woke-back Mountain’ with these two. Now it’s all gone and battle lines are being drawn.”
Musk and Trump’s alliance has rapidly deteriorated over recent days. On Tuesday, Musk slammed the Trump-backed spending bill as a “disgusting abomination” and wrote that “Congress is making America bankrupt.” On Thursday, Trump said he was “very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill” and suggested that Musk — like some others who have left his administration — suffered from “Trump derangement syndrome.”
“You’ve got one MAGA hero accusing another MAGA hero of withholding the Epstein files because he himself is a part of them. And what do they do? I can’t wait to find out,” Kimmel said. “My prediction: at the end of this, one of them’s in a cell with Diddy.”
Guests on Thursday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” included Seth MacFarlane, Draymond Green and Ty Dolla $ign.