After Elon Musk alleged in a post on X that President Trump’s name appears in documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking case, Seth Meyers has pointed out one troubling aspect of the spat: It seems that Musk didn’t share the information until much later than he allegedly learned it.
Musk, who was a friend and administrative figure for Trump until very recently, ignited a feud with the president by criticizing the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and is now moving to the Senate. On Monday, Musk wrote on X that the “massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” and the two have continued trading insults in the media since. That tension reached a major turning point on Thursday, when Musk posted, “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.”
The feud was the subject of the “Late Night” segment “A Closer Look” on Thursday, with Meyers saying, “In the span of three hours, they went from Elon criticizing the bill to Trump threatening to take Elon’s contracts away to Elon suggesting that Trump might be a pedophile. Also, if we’re to take you at your word, Elon, you already knew that, and it wasn’t a dealbreaker.”
Later in the segment, Meyers added, “It’s as clear as ever that neither of these guys really believe in anything. Elon spent nearly $300 million to get Republicans elected, and now he’s shocked that they’re doing the thing everyone said they would do. And in the process, Trump used Elon to get back into power. You know, in a way, they were right. Watching these guys destroy each other is both ‘big’ and ‘beautiful.’”
Stephen Colbert made similar comments during his “Late Show” monologue on Thursday. “By the way, Elon, a little late on that intel. ‘Donald Trump is a sexual predator that preyed on young women, which is something I’ve only decided to tell you because he hurt my feelings. I am the hero of the story!’” he said sarcastically. “Trump’s gonna have to get one of those bumper stickers for his Tesla that says, ‘I bought this before Elon told everyone I was on Epstein’s plane.’”