Elon Musk and Reid Hoffman are once again trading blows online after the latest release of the Epstein files.
The new round of bickering between Musk and the LinkedIn cofounder kicked off on Friday and lasted throughout the weekend, with the billionaires each lobbing criticism at each other over their inclusion in the Epstein files.
Neither Musk nor Hoffman has been implicated in any wrongdoing related to their past ties to Epstein, who looms large in their social-media spat.
Their latest back-and-forth — the two have publicly criticized each other in recent years — appears to have started on Friday, when Musk reshared a post from Katie Miller that was critical of Hoffman. Hoffman fired back at Musk, posting a screenshot of his past remarks about Trump and the Epstein files.
From there, the two have been duking it out on X over the documents released by the Justice Department on Friday related to Jeffrey Epstein — which revealed that Musk made plans to visit Epstein on multiple occasions, including on his infamous private island. (Musk has said he never visited the island).
“This is how I knew so long ago that Reid Hoffman went to Epstein’s island,” Musk captioned a screenshot of an email he received from Epstein in 2014.
“Epstein used Reid being there to try to get me to go, not realizing that it would have the opposite effect,” he added.
Hoffman responded by criticizing Musk for “making false accusations” and lying about his involvement with Epstein instead of working to get justice for Epstein’s victims.
“You lied about this to everyone for over a decade, and now your excuse (it’s disgusting, by the way) is that you could get young girls without Epstein?” Hoffman wrote. (Musk had written on Sunday that “if I actually wanted to spend my time partying with young women, it would be trivial for me to do so without the help of a creepy loser like Epstein.”)
Give us a break: If you cared about the victims as you say, you’d stop making false accusations to cover your ass and start using your $220m of influence with President Trump to get justice for the victims.
Instead, you’re focused on comparing my visit fundraising for MIT to… https://t.co/51VgQ9Q9SY
— Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) February 1, 2026
Hoffman reshared X posts with documents that showed Musk’s past email conversations with the disgraced financier. One post labeled Musk the “surprise breakout star of the Epstein files.”
One of the screenshots from the Epstein files that Hoffman shared showed a 2012 email where Musk asked Epstein, “What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?”
Our latest coverage of the Epstein files
Musk pointed the finger back at Hoffman for his past correspondence with Epstein.
“Epstein hounded me relentlessly to go to his pedo island and I always declined. Not you though. You actually went,” Musk said. “What ‘gifts’ did you bring to Epstein when you went to pedo island?”
Hoffman previously acknowledged he had visited Epstein’s island, which he said was a part of fundraising efforts for MIT.
Musk and Hoffman’s feud dates back years.
Hoffman has previously characterized the beef as one-sided, starting in the years after Musk left OpenAI’s board. Hoffman, who was an early donor to OpenAI, has said Musk has sour grapes over OpenAI’s success after his departure.
“Well, so actually, it’s more his beef with me for having made OpenAI successful with his departure,” Hoffman said. “Because he left saying, you know, ‘You’re all a bunch of jackasses and you’ll fail,’ and I helped them succeed.”
The Tesla CEO, who previously worked with Hoffman at PayPal, said Hoffman was among the billionaires who were “terrified” about Epstein’s client list coming out in 2024.
Hoffman has since said that he’d faced threats after Musk’s claims that resulted in him hiring security.
After the latest release of the Epstein files detailed multiple emails between the Tesla CEO and Epstein, including Musk’s assistant trying to coordinate a meeting with Epstein at SpaceX, Musk took to social media to say that he never “set foot on his creepy island.”
