A newly released Department of Justice document trove includes a photo showing Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg at a 2015 California dinner party that convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein also attended. The image, paired with Epstein's own boastful emails about the evening, adds fresh detail to a story first reported by Vanity Fair six years ago — and lands in the middle of an already-charged political environment surrounding the Epstein files.
The dinner took place on Aug. 2, 2015, in Palo Alto, California. Vanity Fair reported it was hosted by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, ostensibly in honor of MIT neuroscientist Ed Boyden. Also named as attendees in Epstein's emails: PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and Hoffman himself.
Epstein, who was convicted as a child sex offender and later died in federal custody, wasn't shy about the company he kept that night.
According to the New York Post, two emails from Epstein, released as part of the DOJ documents, spell out the guest list in his own hand. In a message to embattled CBS News contributor Peter Attia, Epstein wrote before the dinner:
"Where are you? I might be in LA Monday, burbank to look at the interior of the other bbj, tonite dinner with Musk, Thiel, Zuckerburg"
Attia's reply was casual:
"Sounds like an awesome dinner."
Eighteen days later, Epstein dropped the evening into another conversation — this time with billionaire Tom Pritzker, cousin of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker:
"I had dinner with zuckerburg, mu=k, thiel hoffman, wild."
The word that sticks is "wild." A convicted child sex offender, dining with some of the most powerful men in technology, found the evening noteworthy enough to brag about weeks later. Whatever "wild" meant to Jeffrey Epstein, it wasn't a word anyone at that table should want associated with their name.
Both Musk and Zuckerberg's camps have addressed the dinner before, when Vanity Fair first reported it in 2019. Their responses land in very different registers.
A Meta spokesperson said at the time that the dinner was not organized by Epstein, that Zuckerberg only met him in passing, and that the Facebook founder never spoke to the sex offender again afterward. Zuckerberg himself has offered no public statement in the current cycle.
Musk has been more direct. In an email to Vanity Fair back in 2019, he said:
"I don't recall introducing Epstein to anyone, as I don't know the guy well enough to do so, Epstein is obviously a creep and Zuckerberg is not a friend of mine."
That last clause — tossed in like a postscript — is pure Musk. After the latest DOJ files dropped, he posted on X:
"I have never been to any Epstein parties ever and have many times call for the prosecution of those who have committed crimes with Epstein."
There's a distinction worth noting here. Musk isn't denying he was at the dinner. He's drawing a line between attending a dinner that Epstein happened to attend and attending an "Epstein party." That's a defensible distinction — plenty of people ended up in rooms with Epstein before the full scope of his crimes became public —, but it only holds if the relationship stopped at a single dinner. The DOJ documents, as released so far, don't contradict that claim.
Silicon Valley's elite class spent years cultivating a social ecosystem where proximity to power was the point. Dinner parties in Palo Alto weren't accidents. Guest lists were curated. Invitations carried currency.
Epstein understood this better than anyone. He built his entire second act — the post-conviction reinvention — on access. He collected billionaires the way other people collect business cards, and he made sure people knew it. The emails to Attia and Pritzker weren't private reflections. They were status signals. Name-dropping as social capital.
The uncomfortable reality is that Epstein moved freely through these circles after his 2008 conviction. Not before. After. The machinery of elite social life absorbed a convicted child sex offender and kept turning. Reid Hoffman, who Vanity Fair reported as the dinner's host, has said he regrets his association with Epstein and denies wrongdoing. But the dinner happened. The invitation went out. Epstein showed up.
This is the pattern that should trouble anyone paying attention. It wasn't ignorance. By 2015, Epstein's conviction was public record. The people at that table had the resources to run a background check in thirty seconds. They chose not to — or chose not to care.
The DOJ release has also ignited a public feud between Musk and Hoffman, who traded attacks last week over their respective mentions in the documents. The specifics of their exchange remain vague, but the dynamic is revealing. Two billionaires, both named in a dead predator's correspondence, are turning their fire on each other rather than reckoning with the broader question of how Epstein infiltrated their world so easily.
Hoffman's position is particularly exposed. If Vanity Fair's reporting is accurate, he didn't just attend the dinner — he hosted it. That's a different category entirely. Attending a dinner where Epstein appears is one thing. Organizing the table where he sits is another.
The photo itself, while striking, tells us less than the emails do. A picture captures a moment. Epstein's emails capture intent — and satisfaction. He wanted to be there. He wanted people to know he was there. And the people who could have kept him out didn't.
The DOJ's document releases have steadily peeled back the layers of Epstein's network, and each trove raises the same question: Who enabled this man's access, and who benefited from it? The names change. The pattern doesn't.
Peter Attia, the CBS News contributor who received Epstein's dinner preview, is now facing his own scrutiny over his interactions with the convicted sex offender. Tom Pritzker, a billionaire whose cousin governs Illinois, received the post-dinner boast and — based on the available record — said nothing notable in response.
None of this proves criminal conduct by the dinner attendees. It does prove something almost as damning about the culture that produced it: a world where a convicted child sex offender could sit at a table with the richest men on earth, call the evening "wild," and nobody blinked.
The documents are out. The photo exists. The emails are in Epstein's own misspelled words. What matters now is whether anyone with subpoena power follows the trail past the dinner table.